Roses in my Blood
by shrunkpunk
Summary: Pete fights his loneliness with secret late night hook-ups with Mike Makowski. His friends try and understand why he's been pushing them away. Things get complicated when Ethan tells Pete something about himself that changes things.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Because this story heavily features Mike Makowski and Michael (aka Tall Goth) as main characters, I decided to refer to Michael as Ethan here. It was just too confusing otherwise! I hope you enjoy this first chapter. Much more to come!

* * *

 _I'm not sure what this could mean_  
 _I don't think you're what you seem  
_ -Bizarre Love Triangle, New Order

 **x.**

The morning sun was glaring off of the sink. It was another faceless morning and I was already tired.

"Can you please stop stubbing your cigarettes out in my parents sink." Mike reached across me for the tea kettle. He used the hose on the sink to spray the soggy black ash down the drain before filling the kettle. His t-shirt hung over his boxers and his bare feet padded quickly over the frozen tiles. I liked to be dressed by the time he got up. The black soles of my creepers pushing me a good inch off the floor, away from his bare feet - pale and veiny in the morning light.

"There aren't any ashtrays."

He flipped his hair forward and combed his fingers through it, hitting a snag and untangling it. "We don't smoke - and if you had any sense at all -"

I waved my hand through the air to make him shut up. "I have to leave anyway."

His head was turned towards the collection of green tea on the shelf above the stove. "Oh. Don't call this weekend," he said. He pulled open one of the boxes, holding a paper satchel in his hand. "Katie is home from college." I hated any mention of Katie. I felt a flare of anger at him for bringing her up and underscoring the guilt I tried to ignore. They'd only been dating for a couple weeks, and I kept hoping it would end so I wouldn't have to feel as terrible about myself for helping him cheat on her. The longer it went on, the worse I felt.

"Fine. Cya." If there was a goodbye from him, I didn't wait to hear it before pushing open the door. I felt my pockets for my cellphone and wallet - not wanting to have to go back there prematurely for any reason.

I'd like to think that this would be the last time I'd walk away from his house. But I'd told myself that same thing so many times that the thought crossed my mind without any real conviction.

It always felt the same. The flash of the text message asking me what I was doing. My heart twisting in my chest, glad someone wanted me. Not happy, but _glad_. Followed by casually slipping out of the apartment, with just a hoodie so no one would realize my coat was missing. The cigarette on the walk over to his house, flicked in the snow on his front lawn. The way he'd pull the door open like maybe he was just going out to check the mail and I happened to be there. The meaninglessness of what followed. We'd never discussed it. It just happened and kept happening. I guess some things were like that in life.

Sometimes I'd leave in the morning and sometimes I'd walk home, my hair still sticky with sweat - making me feel feverish in the frozen air. This morning I felt in dire need of caffeine and stopped in at Tweaks. I was the only customer in the cafe and the girl behind the counter was annoyed she had to stop playing on her phone to make me a coffee. I spared a look at my reflection in the window as I waited for my drink. My hair was sticking out on the side and I could tell it was unsalvageable without a shower. I pulled my hoodie over my face.

Coffee never tasted better than when it was washing away the stale taste of the night before. Sometimes I had so much coffee I could smell it coming out of my pores - Henrietta always said that was impossible. But Mike liked to throw me across his bed and promise that the more bitter I became, the better it was. It was weird to think that in a way, I was contributing to our sex life even now.

The light was on in the living room when I pushed open the apartment door. Ethan glanced up from his laptop. "I didn't realize you were already up," he said. He was sitting Indian-style on the floor, a mug by his knee.

"What?" I hated myself for not drinking more coffee on the walk home. "Oh, yeah. I went to Tweaks." I never actually lied to anyone. I just didn't tell the entire truth. It felt better that way. Like maybe it wasn't my fault for lying at all, but theirs for not catching on.

"We have coffee here." Ethan took a sip out of his mug pointedly. He was inexplicitly already dressed. A soft black cardigan was pulled over the Postcard Records t-shirt that he'd had imported from England.

"It's not the same," I mumbled. I kicked off my shoes and perched on the arm of the sofa, not wanting to get too comfortable. I glanced down at my clothes and wondered if they were recognizable enough for him to remember that I'd worn them yesterday. Maybe I was just lazy and would have put them on again. Or maybe I had spent the night with someone - a girl - someone respectable - someone I could love. He didn't know. There's no way he could possibly tell I had Mike Makowski's dried spit on my neck or hickies on my collar bones or deep scratches that Mike insisted on leaving across my sides.

During the semester it was so much easier to memorize everyone's schedule, but now that it was winter break it was impossible to count on solitude. I was too used to the mornings where no one had any idea I hadn't actually spent the night in the room wedged in between theirs.

"What do you think?" He was raising an eyebrow.

"Sorry dude, it's too early. What did you say?"

Henrietta opened the door to her room and stumbled towards the coffee maker, blearily glancing down at her phone.

"I said that it's Wendy's birthday this weekend and I need to pick up her present in Denver. Henri and Firkle are coming to see if Tom's Records has gotten in any new stuff. Do you want to come?"

It felt nice to have the day open. Most days we were in class, shut away in our rooms doing homework, or, in my case, at the campus radio station organizing new music. I couldn't remember the last time we'd all been able to hang out.

"Yeah - let me get a shower first."

"You look like you need one, " Henrietta mumbled as she passed. I ignored the fact that her own hair was a tangled bun on the top of her head.

I'd have to make some adjustments to sneaking around over break if I didn't want to raise suspicions. Getting away with something so easily for so long had made me sloppy I guess. I used to shower at Mike's in the morning. I used to keep extra clothes there. But the sooner I could get out of there in the morning the better. Getting away from him became more important than getting away with going unnoticed by my friends.

The hot water hit against the red welts his sharp nails had left. I turned the heat up and let the spray hit my sides. Something _should_ hurt about it. I leaned forward against the tiles, the water pasting my hair over my eyes as I thought about going with Ethan to get a present for Wendy. Once again I was thrown into the position of getting to hang out with Ethan in the context of helping his relationship with her.

Even after all these years, whatever drew the two of them together was still a mystery to me. A mystery I'd smiled and gone along with for so long that sometimes I thought my cheeks might tear. There was something about her that felt so incredibly boring and incomplete. I'd always wondered what Ethan could possibly talk to her about when they were alone. Sometimes it felt like he was only still with her because that's what everyone expected from him. Why wouldn't they? She was smart and pretty - they looked good together. I'd just never been able to shake the feeling that she'd stolen something that belonged to me.

After we'd graduated and she'd left town for college I thought that'd be the end of it. Up until then I had this feeling like I was just waiting for things to fall apart between them. But now I felt like I'd just been waiting for a bus that had never come. And the only thing that had fallen apart was me.

 **xx.**

I'd spent the better part of the day in a hole-in-the-wall record shop with Henrietta and Firkle. I tried not to look too pleased when Ethan had announced he'd already ordered something and was fine picking it up on his own.

"What do you think he got her?" Henrietta set her stack of records on the milk crate by my coat.

"No idea," I mumbled, thumbing through Depeche Mode albums trying to remember if I already owned a copy of _Violator_.

"You know, I'm honestly surprised they've managed to make it work like this - long distance."

"I guess." I hated when she tried to talk to me about this. There was no right thing to say, so I tried to say as little as possible.

"I sort of thought she'd meet someone...more like her in Chicago."

It was a leading statement. I was supposed to ask what she meant by "more like her." I wasn't going to.

"Yeah, I don't know."

"What do you mean you _don't know_?" She said, waving her hand between the records I was hunched over. "What does that even mean?"

I tried to focus between the spread of her fingers - trying to catch a glance of the names beyond the distraction of her maroon fingernail polish and thick silver rings.

"Come on, I'm trying to find something."

"It's like anytime I bring up Wendy, you suddenly have no opinions."

"Yeah? What is there to have an opinion on? They've been together so long. It's just like, the way it is."

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?"

" _That's all_."

Her only reply was to continue staring at me, waiting for me to do or say something to confirm whatever it was she suspected I felt. My face was hot under her gaze and I was relieved to see Firkle working his way through the shelves towards us.

"Are you guys almost done?" He was holding one of the frozen gumballs from the machine by the door inside his cheek. "I'm not finding anything and I'm starving."

"Yeah," Henrietta said, "I'll text Ethan and tell him we're ready to meet at the cafe."

I paid for the records and followed the two of them to the cafe across the street, my head swollen with my thoughts about Ethan and Wendy. But what _did_ Henrietta expect me to say? They were together, they'd been together for a while, and as far as I knew - they always would be. It's not like Ethan ever talked to me about her. Why would he need to? I was just the person he talked to about records. Wendy was so damn book-smart and self-righteous - no doubt monopolizing phone calls with details of her glorious life at Columbia, he was probably glad to be able to get a word in edgewise with _someone_.

Anyway, I wasn't the right person to be giving relationship advice. As far as they were concerned I'd never been with anyone. Sometimes it was hard not to wonder if they knew I was gay - like, why had no one ever brought up my lack of interest in girls. Were they waiting for me to realize it? Waiting for me to tell them? God, it was so much easier to go on lying than worry about shit like that, maybe it was easier for them too.

When we got to the cafe Ethan was already sipping a coffee out of a thick ceramic mug in the back corner. He was eyeing the bag in my hand with interest and I thought he'd be impressed with the Sisterhood album I'd found.

"Well, what did you get her?" Henrietta asked, breaking his focus. He turned to the small bag on the table and I set the record under my chair.

I reached for one of the menus. I blew most of my money on the records, but didn't feel like eating anything anyway. Still, maybe there was some bullshit latte I could justify buying myself.

"What do you think Pete?" Henrietta said sharply. I glanced over the menu at the silver necklace sparkling from the plush velvet box in his hand. It was hard to imagine how he'd saved up enough money to afford it working his part time job at the bookstore cafe. I don't know why anyone wanted my opinion - Firkle wasn't even looking up from his phone.

"I had it custom designed - her birthstone is in the center - and our anniversary date is engraved in the back." He flipped it around in his palm to show us like we were all in a goddamned jewelry commercial. It felt pathetic, and I felt pathetic for sitting here being a part of it. Is this what our friendship was going to entail in our adulthood; sharing the things we bought with one another?

"That had to cost a shit-ton." Henrietta said, clearly impressed.

"Weren't you saving up so you could get the heat in your car fixed?" I said it too loud, making everyone look at me. But I couldn't help but point out the fact that he was draining his bank account on bullshit trinkets when I had to watch him shiver on the way to college every day, a hot to-go mug of coffee pressed between his legs for warmth.

"The cold doesn't bother me that much." He shrugged and closed the small case, but continued to hold it in his palm.

"Yeah but Ethan -"

"Christ Pete, it's his money." Henrietta shot me a look.

"Yeah, okay."

"It's her twenty-first birthday so I wanted it to be something special," he explained, not looking at me.

"It's a really nice gift Ethan, I'm sure she'll love it," Henrietta said with unnecessary emphasis.

I couldn't take the weirdness that had settled around the table so I stood up and walked to the counter, forgetting about the latte I wanted and just ordering a black coffee in a panic.

I remember when we used to talk about how love was fake. Why should Ethan have to buy something like that to prove himself to anyone? Is that what happens as you get older - you just start believing everything you once saw for what it really is; consumerism. By the time I made it back to the table, the necklace was away. Ethan was staring over Henrietta's shoulder at the busy street outside, probably wishing he could slip into the crowd and leave me here with my coffee and records and inability to pretend to be happy for him. How could I? Just looking at him now I could see he was miserable - maybe it wasn't obvious enough for Henrietta or Firkle to notice. But I could see that there was something in his eyes that didn't match the enthusiasm that the necklace was meant to convey.

"When's her birthday again?" Firkle asked, clearly trying to make up for my lack of interest.

"The party is Saturday night- and you're all invited obviously." He said, glancing over at me. "Her plane gets in Friday night. Then I'll go over early Saturday to give her the necklace so she can wear it the rest of the night."

The way he said it sounded more like a chore than anything. It must be exhausting trying to constantly coordinate someone else's happiness. He'd had those bags under his eyes for months now - excusing it as studying for finals. But we were a week into break and he looked worse than ever.

"Oh god, look who's walking in," Henrietta sneered. I craned my head and sucked in a breath.

"Bloodrayne and Vampir," she laughed. I watched as Mike held the door for Katie, her shopping bags hanging from his wrists. She turned and smiled at him, pointing at a pastry in the glass case by the counter. A beanie was pulled over his forehead, pressing his long green and black hair against his pale skin. The collars were turned up on his navy pea-coat and underneath was the plaid shirt that I'd stripped off of him the night before. My hand instinctively went to the small bite mark just below my ear. I knew my hair was covering it, but something about his presence - and Katie's presence made me all the more insecure.

"Isn't he _so_ interesting? I'm so sick of his pseudo-bohemian Jack Kerouac bullshit," Henrietta laughed.

Firkle laughed, "What do you mean, he has long hair - of course he's _so different_ than the rest of us."

I stared down at my coffee, wondering how long my hair had to be until Firkle thought I was a shitty poser too. Leaning down like this my hair was barely hovering above the foam of my coffee.

"What is he even doing with his life? Selling pot to high school kids after his acoustic sets at Tweaks?" she said, her voice getting louder at the end almost like she wanted him to hear her.

"I always thought he was just waiting around until there was an open casting call for the next pop-punk boyband." Firkle offered.

"God, can we stop talking about people? I can't take this highschool bullshit," I whispered across the table. I didn't need it pointed out how much of a phony egotistical ass Mike was by the people whose opinion I valued most. It already took all of my mental blocks to not dissect whatever it was my need for him said about me.

Henrietta laughed, like maybe I was being sarcastic. "Oh I don't know - I thought it was fair topic for discussion - Firkle agrees."

I wondered, not for the first time, what was wrong with me. What it was that I kept going back to him for. And why I needed it and for how much longer this could really go on. I almost wanted to tell them - to feel their disgust.

"Christ, Henrietta - just drop it." Ethan said. He swiped a loose curl behind his ear. The thin cross hanging from his ear shook from the movement, hovering over his scarf. How could he say that the cold didn't bother him as he sat across from me, still wearing that scarf inside.

Henrietta sighed and I guiltily looked away from Ethan and back towards her eyes wide with mock outrage. "Don't get sanctimonious with me. Pete, you used to stub out cigarettes on his drying sculptures in the kiln room during seventh period art. And you stole the chord to his amp right before the talent show senior year. I mean - it's not like this shit happened in another lifetime."

Ethan shot me a look, like maybe he was interested in my response too.

"Whatever, I don't do a lot of things I used to - like skip gym class."

"Yeah, sure. Maybe _one day_ I'll be as mature as you guys." Henrietta shot Firkle a long-suffering look.

"Come on Henri, that's not what I'm trying to say. I just don't want to waste time talking about Makowski, okay?"

"Cool," she said, stabbing something into her phone. Most likely a text to Damien to ask him to come rescue her from the oppression of my presence later.

Firkle brought up a new topic, but I felt like I barely said another word the rest of the trip.

 **xxx.**

When we got home I made up some excuse about wanting to go listen to my new albums. But when I shut the door to my bedroom I sat in the middle of the bed and waited until I heard the familiar noise of the TV from the living room to finally relax.

From my bed I watched Damien's old Ford Focus pull up to the curb and Henrietta's huddled form walking quickly through the cold and to the passenger door. She was always leaving. It was only a matter of time until she moved in with him. Then in another year Ethan would graduate college and rush off to Chicago to be with Wendy. I needed a plan to get out of here before any of that. I didn't want to be the one who was left behind. But every time I thought about the future I felt exhausted.

I turned away from the window and closed my eyes, pulling my iPod from my hoodie pocket. I put on a playlist to zone out to but must have fallen asleep before the first song had ended. When I opened my eyes the earbud was stabbing into my cheek and Ethan was standing in the door of my room with a pensive look on his face. I wondered if he'd said something that woke me up but I couldn't remember, my thoughts having to work through the thick fog of sleep

"I made dinner- did you want anything?" He was wearing his Smiths hoodie that he'd let me wear one time on a walk home from Benny's.

I scrubbed a hand over my face. "Um, I don't know. What time is it?"

"It's seven thirty - come and grab something, I made too much." He glanced at the records I'd bought today, laying in the bag on the floor still. I knew the neat-freak in him was fighting the urge to pick it up and alphabetize them in with the rest of the records on the make-shift shelf by my bed.

I sat up and nodded. I tried to ignore the fuzziness in my head, following Ethan as he headed towards the kitchen with my hand running against the wall behind him.

He placed a veggie burger on a plate in front of me, the smell of food making me both queasy and hungry at the same time. I decided to split the difference and put a cigarette between my lips and lit it. He placed the bottle of ketchup in front of me. Something about all of it made me feel shitty.

"Hey, I'm sorry about how I acted earlier - with the necklace." I tried to think of some excuse for being a jerk, but I didn't have one other than that was how I really felt. Still, I was sorry; _he_ shouldn't feel bad for loving someone.

He nodded and sat across from me at our cheap kitchen table. "It wasn't a big deal. I just, sometimes I feel like..." He paused, his eyes glancing up at the ceiling, "I feel like I'm not doing all the right things." He straightened the plastic owl place-mats that Henrietta had picked out before running a hand over his hair.

"Yeah, who knows what _anyone_ is supposed to be doing," I said dismissively. For good measure I took a bite of the burger. I'd rather choke on it than have a heart-to-heart where I'd be forced to give him relationship advice.

"Yeah." He looked thoughtful for a moment, his brown eyes watching the lit cigarette I'd perched on the edge of the plate. I was grateful when the silence stretched on and the subject had been dropped.

His sketch pad was laying open, and I just now noticed the charcoal smudges on the side of his hand. He retrieved a pencil from behind his ear and held it above the page, deciding what still needed work. His eyelashes were casting long shadows over his cheeks as he appraised his sketch with a small frown.

"Spending the night drawing?"

"That was the plan. It's not really working out though." He nodded towards the ripped out pages on the chair next to him. "Everything I start ends up looking wrong half-way through."

I nodded, taking a drag of my cigarette.

"I might head out and try and take some new reference photos. Want to come along?"

"Why not." I tried not to get too excited. Ethan and I hadn't spent too much time alone in the past couple weeks because of finals monopolizing our time. But normally during the semester he'd visit the radio station after his shift at the cafe. On nights I worked late he'd bring leftover bagels and coffee to snack on while I did my show. He'd nod his head in approval when I played songs he liked. Shooting me a look whenever my tastes moved to anything too emo. But going out with him to take reference pictures seemed nice - it was something we'd done together in high school dozens of times.

After we'd swaddled ourselves in hoodies and coats we headed out - just catching the last glimpses of the sun before it sank behind the mountains. His camera hung from his neck, his hand resting protectively over the side to keep it from moving too much as we walked.

We both found ourselves unconsciously walking towards the graveyard that was the scene of many bleary nights huddled over Henrietta's Ouija board in sixth grade.

"There's not like there's any deficit of depressing imagery here." Ethan said, snapping a shot of an artificial carnation caught in a sewer grate.

I padded my pockets and realized I must have left my cigarettes at home and felt a surge of anxiety at not having anything to do. I settled for reading tombstones. So many familiar last names; great-great grandparents of the kids I went to school with who were rotting beneath our feet.

"I hope when I die someone had the sense to burn my body - not let any goddamned funeral industry huxter bleed whatever cash remains in my bank account."

"Yeah, death shouldn't be some sort of transaction," Ethan said from behind me - as I stared up at a gaudy angel statue.

I heard a click and turned back to see him wiping the lens with the tips of his fingers.

"Did you take my picture?"

"Yeah, but I think it's starting to snow. That was a good shot though." He focused the camera back on me, his eyes narrowed as he framed the shot.

"Aw come on, I don't want to be in the picture." I felt suddenly self-conscious - like the camera might tell him something about me that reality couldn't.

"Just stand still - like you were."

I sighed and turned back towards the gravestone. It was better to go along with it than make a big deal out of not wanting to. "Should I just look up at the angel..or...?"

"Yeah - just - stay there." I could hear his footsteps crunching through the snow behind me. "I just want to fix your hood." He tugged my hoodie out of the back of my coat where it'd gotten bunched up. "Okay." he said, pursing his lips together. "And look at me quick."

I looked up at him, watching the white puffs of his breath dissolve between us. Sometimes I forgot about the height difference between us - but it was starkly apparent to me as I stared straight ahead at his cherry red lips. The only color in the whole drab area of concrete and gray clouds. "Can you just sort of, pull your hair out from behind your ears. You'll cast a better silhouette from behind that way."

"Yeah," I mumbled. I shook my bangs into my face. "Like this?"

He wasn't looking at my hair or my collar though - he was gazing softly into my eyes. It felt like time had slowed down, my thoughts racing while the rest of me was frozen. I could smell the peppermints he'd been crunching on the walk over, the snowflakes collecting on his curls, weighing them down.

"Sorry," he said, almost inaudibly. I might of thought I hadn't heard it if it wasn't for the small white breath that had been created when he said it. Any words I could have said died on my lips as he quickly retraced his footsteps to take the shot. The back of my neck felt hot, knowing he was scrutinizing me through the frame of the lens.

I felt strange and breathless as I stood there listening to the clicks of his camera. I hated myself for wanting to read into the moment. I've learned a long time ago not to trust my own judgement when it comes to anything involving him. I tried to focus on the cold prickles of snowflakes hitting my skin instead.

"Okay, we should go - it's really coming down now." He casually slipped the camera under his coat.

The snow was coming down at an angle making the world feel like it'd been tipped sideways. My heart felt like it was beating against the metal zipper of my coat and I had to mentally clamp down on whatever thoughts were trying to surface as I joined him on the cement. "I think I heard that it's supposed to be three feet by the morning," I said, proud of this banal piece of small talk even though I'd just made it up to have something to say.

"Well, we don't have anywhere to be," he said.

I wondered if he was happy about that, or the fact that Wendy was a thousand miles away meant that his life was on stand-still. I hated that even after all these years, he was still a mystery to me in so many ways.

When we got back to the apartment Henrietta and Damien were sprawled out on the sofa watching Twin Peaks.

"Jesus, you two are soaked." Henrietta glanced up at us before looking back at the screen. By comparison, she was wearing leggings, an oversized sweatshirt, and was cuddling into a blanket thrown over Damien.

"We were taking some pictures." Ethan said nonchalantly - and why shouldn't he sound nonchalant? We _had_ just been taking pictures, there was nothing more to say or think about. He sat his camera on the table and took off his coat, laying it on the back of a kitchen chair to dry.

"There's stuff to make drinks on the counter." Damien motioned towards the bottle of rum and cans of coke sitting out. I headed straight towards the cupboards and poured myself a glass, never appreciating Damien in my entire life as much as I did in this moment.

I gulped down a mixture that was more rum than coke and kicked my boots off. I could feel Ethan watching me from across the room as I sat down in the chair next to the coffee table.

"Do you know who killed Laura Palmer?" Damien asked me, nodding towards the TV.

"Yeah - "

"Pete! _Shut up_! Damien hasn't seen it!" Henrietta pulled the cover closer towards her neck. Damien looked like he couldn't give a damn either way, and reached for a bag of chips on the table.

I leaned back in the chair, my bangs drying against my cheek. I took another gulp of my drink, already feeling the pacifying effects of the rum. Ethan disappeared into his room with a cherry coke in one hand and his camera in the other. I wondered, with a detached interest what would happen if I followed him. Closed the door behind me, pressed my lips against his until he pushed me away.

But my feet were firmly tucked under me and my eyes were fixated on the TV screen. I was determined not to let whatever loneliness I was feeling make me see things that weren't real. By the time I had finished the glass I felt my head droop towards my shoulder, and the door to Ethan's room was still shut.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thanks for reading the first chapter of Roses in my Blood! I hope you'll leave a review and let me know what you think!

And be sure to check out the fanart from this chapter on my tumblr page.


	2. Chapter 2

No longer cool, but a boy in a stitch  
Unprepared for a life full of lies and failing relationships  
-Sic Transit Gloria...Glory Fades, Brand New

 **x.**

I was sitting on a beat-up sofa in the basement of Wendy's house. Some mind-numbing Taylor Swift song was blasting from upstairs making the red plastic cup of beer I'd sat on the table next to me shake. Ethan had driven us over but fifteen minutes into the party, he and Wendy had headed up to her bedroom. Henrietta, Damien, and Firkle had disappeared into the crowd soon afterwards. The house was packed with every kid in town who was home from college. Everyone was talking too loud over the music, reliving high school memories that meant nothing at the time. It was shocking to me that Wendy had so many friends. I guess no one cares _who_ is throwing a party - the overall lack of things to do in South Park was reason enough to show up.

The basement was a refuge for stoners and introverts who wanted to escape the oppression of the conversation and dancing upstairs. Kids were passing around a joint and watching one another play Grand Theft Auto. I took a drag and glanced at my phone. It was only ten-thirty, but I felt like I'd probably meant the obligation of being here by now. I thought, not for the first time, how much easier life was when I had classes and homework to focus on. Even though it was a Saturday night, I could always go to the radio station on campus. I had a key to it anyway - and my ID card would let me into the building. I could open any new music that'd come in and start labeling things, get a jump-start on the new rotation for next semester. Anything to stop feeling like I was the background character in everyone else's life, an extra to fill the scene.

I headed upstairs, glad to shake off the smoke of the basement. As I worked my way through the crowd a hand snaked around my wrist. I glanced up - Mike Makowski was leering at me, his pupils blown open with whatever drugs were being passed around up here.

"Follow me," he whispered in my ear before letting go of me. I cast one last futile glance around the crowd for any familiar face before following behind him up the stairs. He opened the door to the bathroom attached to Wendy's parent's room. It seemed like the safe bet to me, from up here I could barely hear the squeals of laughter from downstairs. I shut the door behind me and leaned back against it.

Mike was perched on the counter-top, a silver flask at his lips. His skinny jeans were rolled into neat cuffs over the tops of his Doc Martins. He was twisted around to fix his hair in the mirror behind him. His hair was pulled into a high bun but pieces had come loose over the course of the night.

"I didn't know you'd be here," I mumbled, breaking the silence. "But I'm not really interested in a tryst next to Wendy's mom's snowmen hand towels."

He rolled his eyes before sliding off the counter and walking over to me. He pressed me flat into the door, his hips locked against mine. "You need to relax Peter - you're always so tense." His breath was hot against my face, and I could smell the alcohol coming off of him.

He pressed the flask to my lips, I gripped it and took a sip. I gagged at the taste and held it away from my face, my own reflection warped in the shiny silver. "Vodka?"

"Mhm," Mike said, his tongue working its way up my ear lobe. I stared at the stupid blue wicker trash can under the lace curtains across the room from us.

"We shouldn't do this here," I said as his hand slipped under my shirt and slid up my chest. A candle with a film of dust on it sat on the back of the toilet. I closed my eyes and tried to stop thinking about the noise downstairs, the headache I felt like I'd had for days, the fact that it was Mike that was touching me - the only one who had ever fucking wanted to. Thankfully, the burn of alcohol was making it all feel less bad than it should.

"Relax," he whispered, his voice wet and throaty against my ear. He pressed harder into me. "We should get to have a good time too, you know?" He pulled back the collar of my shirt and licked along my Adam's apple as I took a long swig of the vodka. I could smell the pot smoke from downstairs in his hair - his pale blue eyes looking up at me.

"Fine." I pulled his chin up and kissed him hard on the lips. He shoved his tongue between my lips and pulled me further into the bathroom with him - both of us kissing one another hard and desperately until I finally hit the tiled wall by the shower. His hands were on either side of me as I thrust against him through my jeans.

He groaned and pulled me close, his hot breath against my ear, "Good because I want those lips around my cock."

I reached for his belt and started undoing it, his breathing growing heavier as I worked open the buttons of his pants.

I heard the music from downstairs clearer for a moment and realized it was because the bathroom door had been opened. Katie was standing in the doorway, her hand thrown over her mouth. Mike glanced down at me, confused as to why I'd stopped.

"Mike!" She yelled, making him turn around. I could feel his whole body tense against me. He sucked in a sharp breath like he'd been punched.

"It's not - "

She looked at me with a mask of pure disgust before turning on her heel and rushing back down the hall. My hands fell to my sides, my heart pounding in my chest.

" _Fuck fuck fuck!_ " He glanced over me with a look of disappointment on his face, his eyes resting on my bottom lip, swollen from where he'd bitten down.

But ultimately he looked back at the doorway, some impossible internal struggle running through his head before he sighed and took off after her. It's not like I wanted or expected anything more from him - but it still hurt, all of it.

I sagged against the wall, like the wind had been knocked out of me. I wiped my wet mouth on the back of my palm because I didn't know what else to do. Everything felt magnified now - the stupid Christmas decorations, the smell of sweat in the air, the taste of Mike on my lips.

I made eye contact with my reflection in the mirror behind the counter. My cheeks were flushed red, my shirt shoved up, and my hair sticking out from where his fingers had held me. I tried to separate the red and black like it was supposed to be, but it was useless. The eyeliner I'd smudged on before we left the apartment made my green eyes look huge and lost and I felt like I couldn't keep looking into them. I knew that there was some part inside me still that I was letting down. And that same part of me broke a little more each time I kissed him.

I picked up the silver flask Mike had left behind and slammed it against the granite countertop. And when it didn't dent or break I slammed it again and again until the flask had fallen to the floor and I was just hitting my hand until it hurt too bad to keep going. I grasp my injured fist with my left hand and took a deep breath, feeling like the walls of the bathroom were closing in.

I wanted to know what was wrong with me. How had I become this person - this worthless, disposable person? I picked the flask off the floor and finished off what was inside in one long gulp. It made me feel better - warmer and lighter. I wanted to drink until I couldn't feel at all. I walked back down the steps, almost expecting everyone to turn their heads, to know what had happened. But no one noticed me pass by; I kept my head down anyway and shoved my way through the crowd.

In the kitchen a bottle of rum sat unattended and I poured myself a drink - adding just enough soda to make it palatable. I didn't feel like leaving the party anymore. In fact, I almost hoped it'd never end - that maybe I could live in this haze of drunken ambivalence for the rest of my life.

In the basement some of the old Vamp kids were playing video games. I sat on the floor absentmindedly watching them play until one of them offered me a controller. I don't even think they knew my name. These were people I'd gone to school with for twelve years who still called me "that one goth kid." Eventually most people started leaving, and the music had been turned off upstairs. There were a couple kids around me passed out on the sofa.

I tried pushing myself off the ground, but only succeeded in falling back on my hands. The room was spinning anyway, and I couldn't even focus on the steps, much less walk over to them. I laid back against the floor, bunching up someone's hoodie into a makeshift pillow. I couldn't sleep though - too worried that I was going to choke on my own puke. I thought maybe someone would come find me. I imagined Ethan leaning over me, pushing my hair behind my ear and telling me to keep my eyes open, keep my head propped up, to just breathe. I hovered in and out of consciousness, unsure if the thought was real. I woke up throughout the night, a couple times because someone was talking upstairs and once when someone stepped on my hair trying to walk over me.

When the white light of morning finally started to pierce the small windows by the ceiling, I sat up - weak and sore. My entire body ached and it felt like the dampness of the basement had seeped into my skin. As I walked upstairs I stepped over the various kids still sleeping last night off in various spots, cans of beer littering the ground between them. I headed for the kitchen and poured myself a cup of tap water - trying to shake the dizziness away from my vision. My coat was crumpled over a kitchen chair, and I threw it over my shoulders hoping for warmth - but it was almost like the cold was coming from inside me.

Outside the sun was just coming up over the roofs of the houses. Everything was too bright, the white snow and white cement bled together. As I stumbled passed the driveway I was at least glad to see that Ethan's car was gone.

I had two wet feet by the time I got back to the apartment from trying to unsuccessfully weave my way down the sidewalk. I opened the front door to find Henrietta sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. Her hair was still wet from a shower and she had the blanket from the sofa wrapped over her shoulders.

"Glad you decided to come home," she said, her voice too loud.

"Thanks," I mumbled. The effort to speak at all made me feel nauseous.

"Thanks? _Thanks_? I've been trying to get ahold of you all night Pete." She picked up her phone for emphasis before placing it back on the kitchen table. "You can't text me back to tell me where you are or tell me if you're okay?"

What was ironic about all of it is that I hadn't texted her back because I hadn't been okay - wasn't okay. I patted my cellphone to make sure it was in my pocket, realizing I hadn't checked it since before the party. "I was at Wendy's house." I couldn't understand why she wouldn't lower her voice, wouldn't stop staring at me like I was the one causing a scene.

"Really, because I didn't see you there - and Firkle didn't see you there. You can't just fucking ignore us-"

"I wasn't."

"Because we really needed you last night. Ethan and Wendy broke up-"

"What?"

"Ethan needed his friends last night - and you couldn't even answer your fucking phone!"

I had to concentrate to take it all in; her anger, the throbbing light pouring in the kitchen window, what she was saying about Ethan. "Where's Ethan now?"

"Oh, you suddenly care?" She sighed and slammed her chair against the table, making the pain in my temples split down my head. "I'm so sick of you being such a shitty friend! Randomly taking off to do god knows what, acting like we're all too stupid to catch on to whatever it is-"

I couldn't focus on what she was saying. The anger was surging through me at the accusation of being called a shitty friend. I was the one who had laid on a basement floor all night, somehow not choking on my own puke while my friends made it home safely.

"I'm a shitty friend? How about you're a shitty friend. How about I slept on the floor of Wendy's fucking basement because you left without me." I took a breath - trying to focus on her as she stood there with her arms crossed. "You don't even know the shit I'm going through, been going through." I could feel my chest rising and falling, "I can't take feeling like this anymore!" I slammed my hand down on the back of the sofa, cringing and choking at the pain - as it was swollen and bruised from the bathroom counter last night.

I turned to look at her but the room was spinning, and I couldn't tell if it was the anger or the alcohol, my words coming out in strangled yells. I turned and went back out the door, running down the steps of the apartment building, and puked on the curb outside. I choked out whatever I'd swallowed last night, before spitting in the snow, wishing there was more. I stood there gasping in the frozen air, trying to get my breath under control.

"I'm fine," I said to myself. I looked down at my creepers - their thick black heels surrounded by pieces of salt - just to have anything to focus on other than the puke or the throbbing pain of my hand.

I had to get some food and get my head together. Everything was okay, I just had to remember that. I walked to Benny's, glad I still had some crumbled up ones in the back pocket of my jeans.

"I'm okay," I said to myself again outside the diner doors. But this time, hearing my own voice sounding so weak and hoarse made me feel even shittier. I could feel tears welling in my eyes and blinked them away as I pulled the door open. A table of old people looked up from their scrambled eggs and stared at the red in my hair with a look of disapproval. Normally it wouldn't faze me but now I swiped my bangs over my eye, wishing I could disappear behind them entirely. I slid into our usual booth across from Firkle. The remainders of toast sat on an otherwise empty plate and a book of Hemingway short stories was open on his lap.

"Hey," he mumbled, dog-earing a page he hadn't looked up from yet.

"Have you ever read _Indian Camp_?" I tried to say casually.

Firkle's eyes shot up and narrowed. "Jesus Pete, you don't look good."

"I know." I looked down at my chipped black nails poking out of the ends of my hoodie.

"Hey I didn't mean anything - I just..."

He was scooting closer to me, his hand clapped over my shoulder. And I could feel the tears tracing their way down my cheeks.

"What's the matter man?"

"I yelled at Henri and she said I was a shitty friend." It wasn't the main reason I was upset, but it was a reason. Another lie by omission. The thought of lying to Firkle at all made me more upset, and I felt like I couldn't stop crying, like maybe I'd choke on my own breaths. I covered my mouth with my hand trying to stifle the choking noises escaping my lips.

"Hey Pete, come on man, Henrietta isn't going to stay mad at you - you guys argue all the time, just take a breath." I could hear the exasperation in his voice. He slung his arm over my shoulder and pulled me close. "I can call her right now, there's no way she'd want you to be this upset."

"No," I said, shaking my head, making sticky tears pool around my hand. It felt like all the pressure of the last few months was welling up inside of me at once and I couldn't hold it back anymore. I felt so entirely disposable - stagnating in my own world of secrecy. There was nothing Firkle could say to make anything okay and I wanted to tell him that - that it wasn't his fault.

The booth dipped down and two hands were pulling me away from Firkle. Ethan's voice was asking him what had happened while pulling me into his chest. I was aware they were both talking about me but couldn't focus on what they were saying. My cheek was pressed against the cool metal of Ethan's suspenders - pulled over the same striped button-down he'd put on last night before the party.

I felt so stupid but somehow calmer as Ethan rubbed my back in circles and leaning down to softly tell me that everything was okay, his lips moving against my hair. I don't think I've felt so warm in years and I closed my eyes, wishing this moment would last - wishing good things didn't have to come from so much pain. It felt so unfair that I fit against him perfectly like this, and it seemed impossible to me that he couldn't feel it too. I tried to imagine another lifetime where I had been born a girl, where he could love me like he loved Wendy.

My eyes were shut tight but I realized that I wasn't crying anymore. Just taking staggering breaths while my chest shuddered. I knew if I didn't do something I would fall asleep, I was just so exhausted and I could feel his chest vibrate from his voice as he spoke to Firkle above me. But falling asleep would be the final embarrassment, it was already too much to be swaddled like this inside his peacoat, letting him hold me, letting myself want him.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, taking a breath and pushing myself away. For a second I felt his arms stiffen around me like maybe he wasn't going to let me go. I took a shaky breath and looked down at the table, permanently stained with faded coffee rings. "I'm fine - I just - um." I tried to think of a reason that I'd be so upset that would make sense to them. "I just don't like fighting with Henri." I used a napkin to wipe my nose, like that would somehow show them both that I'd completely regained composure.

But neither of them really looked like they were buying it. Ethan was staring at my bruised hand on the table. I shoved it into the pocket of my hoodie wondering if everyone would believe that I honestly didn't remember what had happened to it.

"I can call her?" Firkle offered again, looking at me and then Ethan. I could feel his relief that Ethan was here now to defer judgement to. I was staring at the silver clip in his suspenders I'd just had my cheek against. I was so cold again.

"No, we can talk to her later," he said, waving a hand before picking up a menu. "Let's just get some breakfast, okay?"

"Yeah, it's okay Firkle - I'm just hungover, you know? It just made things seem kind of worse than they are." I said, trying to sound reasonable and composed. It only resulted in them both shooting one another a look.

I took a shaky breath and glanced down at the menu, realizing it was probably best to stop talking for awhile.

"So - Ethan, are you feeling better after last night?" Firkle sounded hesitant, like he shouldn't be changing the topic.

I looked up at Ethan. I'd almost forgotten what Henrietta had said about him and Wendy. It felt less like something that had actually happened and more like something I'd imagined on my walk over to Benny's.

"Wait, what happened?"

Ethan held up his finger, motioned for the waitress to come over, and ordered us both toast, eggs, homefries, and coffee.

"Why don't you take a sip of water first?" He stuck a straw into the clear glass that she had set onto the table. I took a sip and was instantly reminded of the bitter taste in my mouth.

I wondered how much of the argument I'd had with Henrietta he'd overheard and tried to remember what I'd even said. It all felt like a wave of anger and anxiety and then just throbbing pain. I looked outside at the empty parking lot; Ethan's car parked by the front door, a group of old people huddled by the newspaper stand, an empty plastic bag stuck in the snow.

"We don't have to talk about it," Firkle said, probably unnerved by both of our silence, "I know you were up with Henri all night talking about it."

Part of me hated myself for missing whatever was said in the middle of the night, in the middle of everything.

"No, it's fine. I should talk about it." He slid his finger over the silver cross hanging from his ear thoughtfully. "I just don't know where to start." He sighed and took a sip of coffee. "So I tried to give her the necklace at the start of the party when we were alone in her room. She didn't want to really take it out of the box to look at it - which I thought was strange. I tried to explain how it was her birthstone and how I'd gotten our anniversary engraved but she just gave me this look like - like I don't know, like I wasn't being sincere, like it was some joke." His eyebrows pinched together and he sucked his bottom lip in - something he'd done since middle school when he was thinking things through.

I glanced over at Firkle, trying to mirror his expression, because there was some sick part of me that was glad. And I didn't want it to spread across my face.

Ethan took a breath and looked down at his hands. "And she just said that I shouldn't have bought it. She just looked so... apologetic and serious. And then she said that she didn't think we should really be together anymore."

"That doesn't make any sense." Firkle said, throwing a hand up. "Just like that? Do you think there's someone else?"

Ethan was watching as I took another sip of water. "No. Well - I didn't get that impression."

"Maybe she'll change her mind, you know? It had to have put a strain on things being away from one another," Firkle offered. "Once some time goes by, she'll realize what you mean to one another."

He was saying all the right things and I was happy to let him. I peeled the plastic back on a creamer and emptied it into my coffee, watching the white liquid swirl and expand.

"Thanks, but I don't think that's going to happen." He shot Firkle a thin smile. "I mean, I wouldn't have wanted to stay with her if she was unhappy."

"Yeah, of course."

I was thankful when our food came to break up the heaviness of the conversation. I wasn't actually hungry, but knew I had to get myself together.

I could feel Ethan glancing over at me and I tried to shoot him a reassuring smile which I hope both communicated that I was fine and he didn't need to be concerned.

"Hey," Henrietta said, breathlessly sliding into the booth. "Are you okay?" I wondered if Firkle texted her. Her hair was still damp and pulled up into a messy bun.

Yeah, I'm fine ," I said after swallowing my toast. "Sorry I snapped at you - it was just a weird night."

"I'm sorry about what I said Petey," she wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into a hug. "I was worried about you last night. I must have called you like thirty times."

"I guess my phone was dead."

She glanced over at my hand, which I still had stuffed in my hoodie pocket. "And we didn't leave you - I mean, you could have walked home though, right?"

I shrugged. "Yeah of course." Anyone could hear the insincerity in my voice. She shot Ethan a look but no one said anything else about it. Maybe they'd all just accepted that I was a liar.

"I think Pete and I should actually head home," Ethan said, laying down some fives on the table.

"I can come," she offered.

"Just have some breakfast, we'll be okay," Ethan said, his fingers gripping some loose fabric on my hoodie when I stood up, like he was afraid I might need the support. "It's been a long night for all of us."

"Okay cool." Henrietta was watching us, a worried smile split across her face. I'm sure she was just waiting for the chance to tell Firkle what I'd said in the kitchen to her anyway. I wished I could think of some parting thing to say to let them know that I was fine.

"I'm going to go through some of the new music the radio station was sent today - if anyone wants to check it out then," I said.

"Maybe you should just relax Pete," Firkle said - glancing at Ethan.

"Yeah, we will," Ethan said for me before leading me to the door.

I knew I must look like hell at the moment, and it would be hard to come back from everyone witnessing me breakdown like that. Still, I was confident that once I got home, had a shower, and put myself back together I could convince them all that I was fine again.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a review and let me know what you think, thanks!


	3. Chapter 3

_Oh Elise it doesn't matter what you do  
_ _I know I'll never really get inside of you  
_ _To make your eyes catch fire the way they should  
_ Letter to Elise - the Cure

 **x.**

It wasn't until we'd been alone in Ethan's car on the drive home from the diner that it really hit me; he was single. He'd been with Wendy for four suffocating years. I thought it'd end in a wedding that I'd have to throw myself in front of a car to get out of attending. But here we were - me in the front seat of his car, where Wendy had sat so many times on drives to school while I'd been in the back, blowing smoke into her hair.

When we got back to the apartment I got a shower and brushed my teeth until I spit pink in the sink. My mouth tasted like blood and mint. The black eyeliner from last night hadn't come off and I applied more over it. I put on the black and red striped sweater that Henrietta had gotten for me last Christmas. There was no way anyone looking at me would guess that I'd spent the last 12 hours in a drunken haze of self-hatred and disgust.

The light from Ethan's room was casting a long shadow in the hallway and I paused outside the doorway. I thought maybe I could thank him for getting me breakfast and let him know that I felt better now. Maybe I could explain that everything that happened this morning was just the symptom of a bad hangover.

"Hey," he said, glancing up at me. He was sitting on his bed, a sketchpad propped against his knee. "Feeling better?"

"I could probably use another cup of coffee. But yeah." That was mostly true. It felt like someone had filled my head in with cement. The hot spray of the shower had helped but now even the light from the lamp on his dresser seemed to magnify the pressure.

I stood in the doorway, taking in his long coat which was thrown over the back of his desk chair, the small jewelry box on top of a stack of notebooks, swollen with random folded sheets of paper.

"What are you working on?"

"It's a sketch of an astrological tattoo Henri wanted me to design." He flipped the pad around to show me the sketches of stars and planetary symbols across the page.

"Where's she going to get it?"

"Here." He traced his finger along the side of his arm over the small white polka dotted print on his black cardigan. I was glad to see that he'd taken time to change out of the stale clothes from last night while I was in the shower.

"Put on a record and hang out for a while," he said, his pencil continuing to make light scratching noises against the paper.

I shrugged and walked over to his record shelves, brushing my finger over the titles before finally deciding on _Bona Drag_. The Joy Division poster I'd given him for his sixteenth birthday hung above the shelves. I could see the layers of old scotch tape at the corners from where it'd hung in his old bedroom.

I pulled the chair back from his desk and took a seat. The picture I'd taken of him and Wendy from our graduation was perched on the corner of his desk. His arm was thrown over her shoulder. He'd been wearing a thin black tie over a black button-down shirt. I can still remember the twinge of sadness I'd felt taking the shot mixed with the gratifying feeling of holding his camera. There was something satisfying about pressing my fingers on the same buttons he pressed down hundreds of times before.

"Oh, I guess I should put that away now," he said, following my gaze. I wondered if he had called me in here to talk about Wendy - ways to win her back - or how devastated he was without her. There was no way I was going to be the one to bring it up. I doubted I could fake my way through pretending I was upset for him. As his friend though, I knew I should be.

"You don't have to - it's..."

"It's fine. This honestly doesn't feel as weird as it might have been years ago."

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged and looked back at the framed picture with an unreadable expression. "We barely saw one another...I don't know, maybe that's part of why I got her the necklace to begin with."

"Out of guilt?"

He didn't say anything but his silence seemed to confirm it. I picked up an old copy of _Paste_ from his desk, and started flipping through the pages. His pencil began to make light brushing noises on the paper again.

"This kind of reminds me of us hanging out in Henri's bedroom in high school," he said with a small smile on his lips.

"Yeah, except we don't have to crack a window to keep Mrs. Biggle from smelling our cigarettes."

"True."

I turned back to my article but glanced up when I felt him looking at me.

"Why does it feel like even though we live together, we're more separated from one another now than we were back then?" he said.

"That's not entirely true," I said quickly, thinking back to all the things I kept to myself back then.

It's not like there was an exact moment where I realized that I had feelings for Ethan.

But I can remember the moment where I realized that I had to hide them.

 _I was a sophomore and we'd all gone to a stupid Friday night football game. We were hanging out under the bleachers, drinking the couple of beers I'd been able to take from the fridge without my mom noticing. What had otherwise been a forgettable night took a sudden turn when some kids from the other team's school had walked past and loudly called Henrietta a fat bitch._

 _Things had escalated quickly between our groups. I wasn't exactly known for keeping my mouth shut, and the beer hadn't helped. I ended up getting shoved into one of the metal pillars of the bleachers and Ethan had retaliated by punching one of the kids in the mouth. Firkle and I joined in, each of us tackling a member of the other group. Henrietta was screaming at all of us to walk away and stop and when we wouldn't she'd stormed off._

 _Eventually things were broken up when a security guard had shown their flashlight towards us. The other kids ended up running off before we could even see if we'd landed any blows. I'd gotten sucker punched in the stomach - the wind knocked out of me, but managed to pull myself off the ground._

 _But Ethan had been hunched over unmoving on the ground, his black coat twisted and matted in dirt. I ran over and kneeled down, helping him sit up as he cupped his hand over his nose. Blood seeped under his fingers and had already stained the white collar of his shirt. It hurt to see the blood on his pale skin, swelling over the thick silver rings I loved to watch him twist during study hall._

 _"_ _Are you okay?" I'd said, my eyes scanning his face for other signs of injury. I wiped some blood away from under his eye - making sure it was just from his nose and that he hadn't been cut._

 _"_ _I'm fine." He'd pulled away from me and shot me a weird look. "Just get_ _ **off**_ _of me."_

 _I drew my hand back but stayed there on the ground with him. "I can get you ice from the concession stand - or napkins or –"_

 _"_ _Hey Pete, I got hit in the face too - want to go grab me a soft pretzel and a root beer?" Firkle said, laughing as he dusted dirt off his jeans._

 _I'd blinked and stood up - my knees shaky and my head spinning. I glanced at Firkle's smirking face and then back at Ethan who'd flashed me a questioning stare as he stood up. I could feel the blood rushing to my face. I'd felt so exposed. So stupid._

 _"_ _I'm just," I said, surprised at how the words didn't seem to fit in my mouth. "I'm going to go make sure Henri is okay." I'd barely gotten the last word out before taking off. Running from under the bleachers, shoving my way through the crowd at the concession stand, and ending up in the bathroom on the other side of the stadium. As I stood over the sink, the pain in my ribs from where I'd been punched hit me all at once. I felt like I couldn't breathe and shakily turned on the water. Ethan's blood was still on my fingers. I let the hot water wash it away before splashing some over my face._

I knew then that I couldn't ever let anything like that happen again - touching Ethan, allowing my feelings to be so exposed to him, to anyone. I'd felt angry at the feelings I had that twisted everything I thought or did. I couldn't just be normal, I realized that if I wanted things to stay the way they were I was going to have to close a part of myself off to my friends. Over the years I've only gotten better at it.

Ethan was watching me now with a contemplative look on his face. It was almost like I could still see that blood all over his face, the way he'd looked at me that night. I was still that same person and there was no reason to think that he wasn't too.

He shifted in his bed and sat his sketchbook on the pillow next to him. "You're always so guarded. Like right now. But I just want to be able to be there for you."

"There's nothing to really know..."

"What happened this morning?"

" _I told you_."

He looked disheartened, his brown eyes were sad as he gazed at me from the bed.

"All of that because Henrietta asked you where you'd been last night?"

I shrugged. I couldn't believe that he'd called me in here, pretending he wanted to reconnect when really he just wanted to interrogate me. Where was he that night all those years ago when I needed him to tell me it was okay? Tell me that he wasn't laughing at me. That he didn't think I was a freak. That we could still be friends.

"Pete?"

" _Jesus_. What."

"What happened to your hand?"

I sighed and stared straight at the wall across from me. "What do you want to hear?"

He wrapped a curl around his pointer finger, holding it tight before releasing it again. We both sat in silence. I thought maybe he had decided to just drop it and I looked back down at the magazine.

"Remember those months in middle school when your mom took off but you didn't want the rest of us to know?" He said slowly - glancing at me to gage my reaction. "You said she was working third shift so you had to walk to school in the mornings even though you lived across town. But I knew you weren't going home to anyone at night. I could see it on your face. So I kept inviting everyone out to Benny's after school just so I could make sure that you were eating dinner. I can remember begging my parents to let you stay with us until she came back. I remember stopping you in the parking lot one night on the walk home and telling you that I knew - that I wanted you to stay with me until she came back. That I swore I wouldn't tell anyone, not even Henri."

"Yeah." I thought about how embarrassed but relieved I'd been when he told me he knew. I'd only been in fifth grade. The nights alone curled into the wall next to my bed had been especially rough. I'd wake up to every noise coming from the trailers around ours. When I was at Ethan's house I'd fall asleep to the sound of him pushing the buttons on his PSP and wake up to him handing me a strawberry Poptart in the morning.

"I wanted to help you then - and I want to help you now. But I know that paying for your toast with my allowance and letting you borrow my Star Wars sleeping bag isn't going to cut it this time. But I can't read you anymore Pete. I don't know what's wrong, I just know that something is. And I want to help."

There was nothing but sincerity in his words, I almost felt like I was laying on the floor of his old bedroom now. Like I could say anything through the dark to him and it'd be okay. But things weren't simple, and they hadn't been for a long time. Still, I wanted to tell him something. I wanted to let him know that things might not be great, but I'd be okay. I always had been.

"There's nothing going on exactly. It's just…I'm tired of being alone. And before you say that I have you guys, you know it's not the same. Henrietta has Damien, and you have...or had Wendy and Firkle doesn't seem to care either way - but I do, and I'm sick of it. I guess it just really gets to me during breaks like this."

His eyes looked so sad as he sat on the bed listening to me, but I could feel that the tension in the room had lifted. I'd done something right, given him the truth; however watered down.

"I'll always be here for you Pete."

I nodded. It was nice to hear, but so empty. Because he wasn't there for me in the way that I wanted him to be. He hadn't been, starting that night at the football game. What would life be like if he'd followed me to the bathroom? Told me that he knew why I'd run, knew why I had touched his face. What would my life be like now if he'd kissed me on the mouth, and confessed that he felt the same way?

He sat up and swung his legs over the bed. "We should get out of here for a bit. I think it'd help both of us shake off last night. We could go see if the thrift store has anything new in."

I'd felt so exhausted earlier but now I felt like I would go anywhere with him if he just asked me to.

"Yeah I haven't been to the Salvation Army in forever."

He stood up and grabbed something off the side of his dresser. "Here," he said shoving a hoodie into my hands, "it's freezing outside and you always look so cold."

I stared down at his Smiths hoodie as he shoved his wallet into his pants pocket. I tried to tell myself that the gesture didn't mean anything. But I didn't fully believe it. Pushing my arms through the sleeves now felt just as gratifying as when I'd pushed the buttons of his camera. Because it was his. And because there were some things, I guess, that I'd just never get over.

 **xx.**

We spent the day picking through every thrift shop in a twenty mile radius. We'd even found an old Crosley record player that Ethan swore he could fix up. It was nice not having to think about anything beyond sorting through the used stacks of CDs and tapes. I didn't even mind the Christian radio station the owners always insisted on piping through the store.

The clothing choices were pretty slim. Sometimes you'd find good band t-shirts that aging hipsters had parted with. Today though the only thing I was even somewhat interested in was an oversized army jacket. I threw it on over Ethan's hoodie and stared into the mirror attached to the end of a rack of clothes. Ethan walked up behind me, and I watched him raise an eyebrow in the mirror.

"What do you think?" I said, straightening the collar. The sleeves fell over my fingertips, but there was something punk about the coat overall. Maybe I could add studs to the shoulders.

"I think if you're going to pull that off, you're going to have to let me give you a mohawk." He slid his hand under my bangs and mockingly cut them off between his fingers.

"Maybe," I said, raising an eyebrow in mock consideration, gathering the long sections of my hair into a point before letting it fall back over my eyes.

"Seriously?" A small frown played on his lips as he stared at the long tips of my hair falling over my cheek.

"No," I laughed as I pulled the jacket off.

"Cool. Because I happen to like you the way you are."

I laughed and turned my back to him, busying myself with hanging the coat up so he wouldn't see the way my cheeks had flushed.

"Speaking of questionable fashion choices, do you remember how you went through that phase in eighth grade where you decided you were going to embrace Victorian goth and started wearing a top hat everywhere," I said.

"It was a bowler hat."

"Still..."

"Firkle thought I looked cool," he said with a smile.

"He was like ten."

"Well, I'd like to think I have really nailed down my style since then."

"You do okay," I said.

"Okay enough for you to wear my clothes," he pointed out.

I shrugged and pulled the zipper of his hoodie tighter up to my chin as he laughed.

We didn't end up getting home until the sun was setting. The black telephone wires were cutting over the oranges and purples dropping below the roofs of houses across the street. I grabbed the plastic bags sitting at my feet as Ethan carried in the Chinese takeout we'd stopped off for on the way home. When we were inside he opened the white cartons of rice and noodles on the kitchen table. I pulled my stack of CDs from the recycled plastic bag the lady at the Salvation Army had shoved them in.

"So what all did you end up getting," I said, motioning to his bag.

"Some books mostly - an anthology of Emily Dickinson and an illustrated copy of the Tempest. Oh and that black sweater I showed you."

I nodded and took a bite of the spring roll and cracked open a cherry coke. He was staring at the noodle he was twisting around his fork. He let it slide back off, a faraway look across his face.

He'd gotten quiet on the drive home and I'd been especially thankful for the copy of Faith I'd found at the thrift store that I shoved into the CD player. But now there was no music to cover up the silence and there was no denying the preoccupied look on his face.

"Is everything okay?"

"I've just been thinking." He sighed and looked solemnly down at the packets of soy sauce stuck in the inside the plastic bag still. "I want to tell you something that I didn't say in front of Firkle at the diner this morning."

I swallowed and felt my shoulders tense. This had to be about Mike. I immediately felt ready to tell him it was none of his business - that he couldn't understand. That it wasn't everyone's lifelong dream to be in a boring relationship - buying presents and waiting around for your cellphone to ring.

"It's about me and Wendy. Well, I guess it's just about me."

I resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, okay…"

"Last night Wendy told me that the reason she wanted to end things was because she didn't think I was being honest with myself." He sat his fork on the table and leaned back in his chair. "And even though I knew what she meant as soon as she said it, I pretended I didn't. Pretended to her and to myself. I told myself that she didn't know me as well as she thought she did. That she was just trying to find excuses to leave me."

He sucked in a breath and looked up at me. "But ultimately I know that isn't true. She helped me realize that I - well, I think I'm gay."

It felt like someone had pulled the chair from under me. I picked up my soda and held it for a second before sitting it back in the swelled ring it'd left. He was watching me with a searching look. I couldn't even begin to make sense of the flurry of emotions consuming my thoughts.

"Wow, well - that's cool Ethan." I managed, shooting him a quick look before returning my gaze to the stupid soda. It didn't even sound like my voice. It felt like I didn't know what to do with my body.

He let out a breath and I could feel him continuing to stare at me, waiting for something more. But the extent of what that more could be had me completely mortified. My heart was racing and I felt like the temperature in the room had risen twenty degrees. I was trying to will the universe to make Henrietta come through the door. Anything to make this moment end so I could have more than a second to get my thoughts together.

"' _That's cool Ethan?'_ That's it?" His voice was quiet and raw.

I turned my palms up with a shrug, "Yeah?" I folded the lid back over my rice and stood up to put it in the fridge. "I mean, what else is there to say?"

"It's just…I guess I thought we could talk about it or something."

I shut the door of the fridge and leaned against it. "Listen, you've gone through a lot in the last 24 hours. I think it'd probably be good for you to think things through more."

"What are you saying?"

"Most people don't go from buying their girlfriend of four years expensive jewelry one day to deciding they're gay over the course of a week."

"Like I said, there's more to it than that."

"Like what?" I couldn't help the accusatory tone in my voice.

"Why are you questioning me like this?"

"It's just hard to take what you're saying seriously."

He rested his elbows on the table and sat his chin in his hand. "Pete this is something I've struggled with for awhile."

I flipped my hair out of my face and crossed my arms over my chest. "This is the first I'm hearing of it."

"Well it's not the first time I've felt this way."

"Why tell me now?" With everything that had happened last night I couldn't rule out that this was some sort of trick.

"I can't believe you're reacting this way," he mumbled more to himself than me. He was fishing in his pockets for his pack of cigarettes. He stuck one between his lips, lit it, and took a long drag.

"Listen, all I'm saying is maybe you want to take more than a night to think about this before you start telling people."

"Yeah. I guess so." His voice was closed - and he wasn't looking at me anymore. He blew another cloud of smoke over his shoulder.

I stared at the floor trying to keep my thoughts from racing.

Without saying another word he stood up and brushed past me on the way to the door. I wouldn't have tried to stop him even if I could think of anything more to say. I heard his car start downstairs and I knew that he was gone. That today was gone.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thanks for reading! I hope you'll take a moment to leave a review and let me know what you thought of this chapter! There's much more to come. Thanks to JoJo for creating fanart for this chapter. You can find the artwork on my Tumblr page.


	4. Chapter 4

_I am waiting til there's nothing left  
_ _I'm a prayer, all you see is breath  
_ -I Was a Prayer, Alkaline Trio

 **x.**

Ethan hadn't come home that night. But if he had, I wouldn't have known what to say. I couldn't understand what it was he wanted from me. And there was no way I could trust myself to have a conversation about sexuality without saying too much. Because who knows if that's how he'd even feel in another week. I couldn't just expose everything I felt for years. Everything I'd fought so hard to hide. I had to keep my distance until things died down. Once the semester started back up things would have blown over. Maybe he'd even be back with Wendy or some other boring girl.

I threw myself into writing reviews for the blog for the radio station. With my earbuds firmly in place, a black coffee on the table, and my laptop open I was able to achieve complete sensory deprivation from the rest of the world. All I needed to focus on was deciding what I thought was the strongest track on each album.

I stared at my blinking cursor, trying to think of a better word for "experimental." But couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. When I glanced up, I had to do a double-take at the girl by the counter. I would have barely noticed Mike's girlfriend if she hadn't been glaring at me with that same look of disgust she'd had on her face the night at Wendy's party. She shook her head and started walking towards me with a purposeful look on her face. I reluctantly pulled an ear bud out as she stood over me, her hands planted on her hips. The fringes of her scarf were eye level and I had to look up to meet her glare.

"I need to talk to you," she said too loudly. My neck instantly felt hot under her stare, and I glanced at the people around us. No one seemed bothered by the shrillness of her voice or the tension radiating from her body.

"I'm in the middle of something..."

She laughed sarcastically. "Yeah I guess I'm always catching you in the middle of something."

I knew my face was red in spite of telling myself that what she said didn't matter to me. I flicked my bangs over my eyes. "Just go away," I mumbled.

"I should have guessed you were a fag," she said under her breath, " _just look at you."_

I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of denying it. "Let's go outside," I said instead, standing and pushing past her. I could see her reluctantly following me out of the corner of my eye. Maybe she had hoped to cause a scene, embarrass me in front of these strangers. Maybe I would have deserved it.

I stopped outside the cafe and turned to face her with what I hoped was a look of inconvenience. I could probably stand here and take a couple insults if it'd make her feel better. In a sick way, it might make me feel better too.

"Okay, what?" I said. I wasn't going to make it easy for her though.

"What do you _think_?" Now that we were outside, I could tell that she'd been crying. Her face was blotchy and pale, her blonde hair was pulled back too tight. I almost felt bad for her.

I dug in my pocket for my cigarettes. I took a drag and tried to convince myself that I wasn't intimidated by what she knew about me. "I really have no idea."

"Look, Mike told me what really happened that night."

I shrugged. It's not like I gave a damn either way whether this ruined their relationship.

"I need to hear it from you," she said, turning her head away from me when the wind blew the smoke from my cigarette towards her.

I honestly wonder what Mike was thinking - leading me into that bathroom while he must have known she was at the party looking for him. Was it some twisted turn on for him - did it make shoving me against that wall all the more satisfying?

"I was drinking. I couldn't even tell you how I got home that night."

She shook her head like she couldn't bear to be in my presence another second. "Yeah, Mike told me how shit-faced you were. That he was trying to get you to a toilet to puke. And then," she sucked in a breath, " _you_ twisted around and kissed him."

It was like having to say the words was making her hate me more. I took another drag of my cigarette, blowing smoke over my shoulder. How long had it taken Mike to come up with that story - on the way down the steps? The only way she'd believe that is if she really wanted to.

I raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Well, I guess you have to ask yourself; _would Mike lie to you_?"

Her eyes narrowed and she took a step closer to me. "Seriously? What is your problem?" She ripped the cigarette from my lips and threw it into the street. "Is that what happened?!"

I took a step back, trying to ignore the fact that my back was against the wall of the building now. She was standing so close to me that I could see the small gap between her front teeth that braces never fixed. I looked her in the eyes. "If Mike's word isn't enough for you anymore," I said with as much sincerity as possible, "then maybe you should ask yourself why that is."

Her eyes widened and I thought she was going to smack me for a moment, but she had just raised her hand to stab her finger towards my face. "You don't know a fucking _thing_ about my relationship!"

But I was looking over her shoulder. Henrietta was on her way into the cafe, her phone pressed to her ear. Of course, this would be the moment that she'd decide to leave Ethan's side for a coffee. I thought for a hopeful moment that maybe Katie was blocking me enough to obscure Henrietta's view.

"Are you listening to me Pete?" Katie yelled, making me inwardly cringe. "I deserve to know what happened between you and _my_ boyfriend!"

"What's going on?" Henrietta said, her hand falling away from her ear as she shot me a questioning look.

Katie spun around. "I bet you goth assholes all think it's hilarious."

Henrietta's eyebrows shot up under her bangs. "Um, okay," she said to Katie before focusing on me. "What is she talking about?"

"Okay, Katie - that's what happened," I whispered quickly. "What Mike said, it's true."

She turned back to me, the look of relief spread across her face was mixed with hatred. "Is it? Well let me make this perfectly clear for you. Mike is taken. He isn't gay. And honestly, he's completely disgusted at the thought of you coming on to him."

"Okay, okay." Henrietta walked over to us, pushing Katie's shoulder back so that she could step in front of me. "You can seriously back the fuck off." I didn't deserve to have anyone defending me - much less her.

"Stay away from Mike," Katie said to me over Henrietta's shoulder. Her eyes were wide and bulging and I fought the urge to take a step back.

"Okay," I said breathlessly, "I will, I will."

"The hell? Nothing happened between Pete and your Edward Cullen boyfriend." Henrietta planted her hand on her hips.

"Yeah? That's not what he just admitted happened in the bathroom at Wendy's party."

Henrietta shoot her a disbelieving look. "Maybe you were off your meds?"

Katie rolled her eyes. But she'd gotten what she wanted. I probably should have just said what she wanted to hear from the beginning. "You're white trash Pete," she called over her shoulder as she walked to her car. "Trailer trash. Just like in school."

"Fuck _off_!" Henrietta yelled. Her voice seemed to bounce off the buildings around us and I was sure if I turned around, curious heads from inside the cafe would be staring out at us. "What a crazy bitch!" she said as we watched Katie's car speed away.

When I didn't say anything, Henrietta turned and shot me a questioning look. "She's crazy, right? None of that is true, right?"

"Right," I said softly. The unfinished cigarette that Katie had pulled from my lips was still smoking in the street. It'd been my last one.

"Pete" she said, reaching for my hand. "You're shaking."

"I'm fine." My hand instinctively reached into my coat pocket. I ran my finger over the ridges of my lighter.

"What the hell is going on? _Did_ something happen between you and Mike?" Her dark eyelashes made her cheeks bleed into the pale concrete around us. Everything was too vivid. Too saturated.

"I don't know," I mumbled. I needed to get out of here. I couldn't think of a single excuse for leaving though - in fact, I felt like I couldn't think about anything at all. My heart was beating so fast.

"What does that mean?"

I opened my mouth but it was like I was incapable of forming the words.

"Don't just stare at me. _What does that mean?"_

"Nothing."

She shook her head and took a step back. " _Fine_. Don't tell me. I don't understand what's going on with you. And you don't want me to. So fine."

"Okay." I shrugged and looked down at my shoes. I'd had everything under control with Katie until she'd shown up anyway. I hadn't needed her help. I was fine on my own, I had to be.

She shot me a sad look before turning and walking away slowly like I was going to tell her to stop. I wasn't.

 **xx.**

The radio station was on the fifth floor of the student union building. I hadn't passed a single person on the way up here. After leaving the cafe, coming here seemed like the obvious choice, a panic room from the rest of the world. There was no way I was going home tonight. It's not that I couldn't have put up with the cold shoulder from Henrietta, it's just that I didn't want to right now. It was better to be alone by choice. Anyway, how could I explain that I couldn't just crack open and tell her everything just because she was interested? Because she had happened to stumble upon a minor implosion in my life.

I knew that I'd fucked up things with both Henrietta and Ethan but I couldn't think about how to make any of it better tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning things would seem easier. For now, it was probably better that I was somewhere that I didn't have to talk to anyone at all. Earlier Mike had texted me to thank me for covering for him. And just when I was sure that I couldn't possibly feel any cheaper he asked me to come over so he could "repay" me. I told him I'd be at the radio station all night. I don't know why I even responded at all, much less gave him a legitimate excuse.

I settled onto the beat-up couch in the back corner of the station, my Styrofoam cup of coffee on the tiled floor, and cellphone on the cushion next to me. I don't know who I was expecting to call or text but either way no one did. A stack of promo magazines from independent labels needed to be sorted through still. But I just tilted my head back against the wall and listened to the automated playlist I'd put on earlier. Maybe there was some high school kid within the 20 miles that the station's frequency stretched appreciating these songs with me from their bedroom. The thought made me feel less lonely.

I threw an arm over my face to block out the blinding fluorescent station lights. My mind kept circling back to the moment with Ethan in the kitchen. The way I'd stood up to put the stupid rice into the refrigerator. Like what he told me didn't matter to me. Like those weren't the words I'd been praying to hear since I was a scrawny kid who always walked a step behind him just so I could sink my feet into the footprints his boots made in the snow. Who knows, maybe Ethan _was_ gay, but he'd never want me now. He's been in a long-term relationship for years. Walking Wendy to her front door after dates in high school, suffering through concerts of all the shitty bands she liked, he even drove to Chicago to help her move in freshman year. He could never understand what I've been doing with Mike. All this time I thought in a twisted way my secrets were protecting the friendship I had with him - but now I wonder if it hadn't destroyed the possibility of something else in the process.

I must have slipped into sleep because I woke up to the stairway door opening down the hall. My shoulders were pinched and sore from the way my neck had been strained forward. I could hear footsteps getting closer to the station. I almost hoped it was a security guard trying to tell me that I wasn't supposed to be here this late. I'd almost welcome the opportunity to fight with someone that I didn't deeply care about.

I could see the white face of Mike through the soundproof glass of the station. I hated myself for feeling anything other than disgust. I didn't want to be this person anymore. Glad to be anyone's anything. He pushed open the station door as if he belonged here. The collars of his peacoat were popped up against his chin. His cheeks were pink from the cold and I wondered how far away he'd had to park. He twisted the cap off a tube of chapstick and pressed it against his bottom lip.

"Working late?" he said nonchalantly, as he stared up at the peeling posters taped to the wall behind my head. There weren't any windows in the station - which had been nice earlier when I hadn't wanted to feel the weight of the sun going down. But now I felt like I had no sense of time at all. It could be ten minutes from when I closed my eyes, it could be three days later. I glanced at the clock over the door, it was a little after one in the morning, but I hadn't lost my sense of disorientation.

"What do you want?" I picked my coffee cup off the ground, and drank the remaining cold sips. I dropped the cup into the trashcan. It landed on the wrapper from the crackers I'd gotten out of the vending machine downstairs.

"I told you." He took a step closer, his eyes raking down my chest.

"That's not going to happen." I had a headache that seemed to get worse with every nasally word he said

"You so nobly took one on the chin for me this morning, Peter. Let me make it up to you."

"It had nothing to do with you. Your crazy girlfriend was making a public scene. I just wanted her to shut up." I took a breath and crossed my arms over my chest. "All of this is all your fault. Why did you even try to start something if you knew she was at the party?"

"Calm down." He slid a hand over my arm. "What did I say about all that caffeine you drink?"

"Get off." I shook him off of me and placed my own hand over where he had just touched me.

Mike laughed under his breath. "Don't you get tired of this? Pretending you don't want me…"

"You're pathetic. Go home to your girlfriend. Tell her the truth and hope she still wants you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Jealous?"

"Don't you get it? Katie was almost in tears today. God, Mike - you actually have someone who cares about you - and what you have together with them." He was twisting a loose hair around his finger, watching me. I knew he wasn't paying attention to what I was saying. The corner of his lips were already curled in a smirk from what he was about to say.

"You're so pretty Peter. I love watching the blush creep up your neck when you're passionate about something. Reminds me of the way your green eyes flash up at me when -"

"Just shut up!" I yelled as I shoved his shoulder making him stumble back into the CD shelves by the door. A couple empty cases slid off the top shelf and he had to jump to the side to avoid being hit. The sound of the cases cracking against the floor seemed too loud in the otherwise abandoned building. He slid his hand over his head as if something had actually hit him and looked back at me in disbelief.

"Christ, what do you _want_ from me?" I was glad to hear him raise his voice for once. He shook his head like he shouldn't have to be explaining any of this to me. "Katie's a nice girl but sometimes I don't want nice - I want a mindless fuck."

"That's not what I want anymore. So _fuck_ off."

He shook his head and sighed like maybe I was just too stupid to understand what he was telling me. "You let Katie get to you. But listen to me, she's convinced that it was just a drunken thing…she doesn't suspect anything more than that." He somehow managed to flash me a reassuring grin that made the coffee in my stomach feel like acid. Still, I couldn't help but feel like one of us had a chance at having something more than this. I thought of Katie's pinched face today, looking at me with so much desperation.

"Does Katie ever hold your hand? Does she kiss your forehead? Does she put her head on your shoulder when you're on the sofa watching TV together?"

He moved closer to me, his eyes narrowing. "Let's just _stop_ talking. We were never good at it, we didn't have to be … "

"I don't know why I'm wasting my breath on you," I said, turning away to grab my keys. If he wasn't going to leave, I was. He grabbed my shoulder from behind and spun me around in one jerky motion. His lips clamped down over mine, his tongue trying to pry open my lips. He used his taller frame to shove me back towards the wall. His hands were in my hair, holding me too tight and as I pulled away I could feel my hair almost ripping to escape his fingers. I shoved him away and wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my shirt.

" _Fuck_!" I yelled, dragging my palm over my lips. "If you touch me again, I will throw you through the fucking glass." My head was spinning and all I could think about was clawing him out of my life.

His eyes were wide, his hand slowly falling back to his sides.

"I don't understand," I started, shaking my head as I stared up at the fluorescent light above us. "What can't you understand about this being over?"

"I just…"

"I used to think that what we did together was better than nothing." I said.

"Pete…"

"It wasn't."

His eyes fell to the ground.

I grabbed my coat from the back of the sofa and shoved my arms through the sleeves. "You know, when we were kids I thought you were an egotistical, pretentious ass. Later I thought maybe none of that mattered - because maybe you were struggling with some of the same things I was." He glanced up at me. "But you aren't. The only thing you struggle with is where you're going to find your next fuck."

He sat on the armrest of the sofa, his hair falling over his face. "Don't call," I said, pausing in the doorway, "because it's never going to be me again."

I didn't look back before walking out of the station. I ran down the stairs of the building, trying to focus as the bricks of the walls blurred together. I needed to stop thinking about what had just happened upstairs and concentrate on getting out of here. There was some relief in knowing that it was over. But nothing I could have said to him would have ever been enough to convey the sense of self-hatred and disappointment he made me feel. Maybe it didn't matter if he knew anyway. It's not like he'd give a damn.

The drive back home took too long. Every red light was an excuse to find a new song to blast as I flew down back roads. I kept biting down on my bottom lip wanting to forget the taste of Mike, wishing I had the nerve to bite down hard enough to make myself bleed. I could have driven anywhere but I ended up parking in my normal spot outside the apartment building. I didn't care if I had to put up with Henrietta ignoring me anymore. It seemed so small and trivial now. I kind of wanted to celebrate. Dig that fifth of gin out of the back of the kitchen cabinet and drink myself to sleep.

As I got out of my car I glanced up at the building. Ethan was leaning against the doorway, illuminated only by the porch light and lit cigarette between his lips. I squared my shoulders but kept walking, keeping my head down. Maybe he'd decided to take a page out of Henrietta's book and leave me the hell alone out of frustration. That was really the best I could hope for.

"Hey," he said as I tried to pass by, moving slightly so he stood between me and the door.

I was staring at the cracking paint on the doorframe behind him. There was a part of me that was relieved that he wanted to talk to me but I couldn't manage another confrontation tonight. I'd rather lie down on the frozen cement and sleep here than try and explain anything I'd said to him yesterday.

"Pete?"

"Hm?" I sucked my lip in where Mike had kissed me - worried momentarily that it was visible. Some kind of wound.

"You look like you could use a friend."

"I could _use_ a drink," I said as I reached behind him to pull the door open. He moved aside enough for me to squeeze through.

But I could hear him crushing his cigarette under his boot before the screen door shut and then opened again. His footsteps followed behind me up the steps. I couldn't have a repeat of the meltdown I'd had in the diner. I'd worked so hard to convince everyone that I was okay. But more and more I felt like I was trying to bail out a sinking ship.

"Listen," I said, spinning around on the stairwell. "I'm sorry about what happened yesterday. I really am. But I can't talk about it tonight. I can't talk about _anything_ tonight."

His hands shot up. "We don't have to."

"Fine." I said flatly. I stared up at him, something in my chest coming unknotted just from the understanding and concern in his eyes.

"I'm glad you're home," he said quietly. Had he been waiting up for me? It had to be almost two by now.

I looked down, realizing exactly how at ease he'd made me feel with a few quiet words. "Me too."

He shot me a smile before nodding at me to continue up the steps. "We had pizza earlier. I think there are a couple slices left."

The smell of pizza was still lingering in the apartment when we walked in. I hadn't realized how hungry I was, but I headed straight for the brown box on the kitchen table, pausing my plans for drinking for the moment.

Ethan sat on the sofa, crossing his long legs, his boots almost touching the coffee table. I thought about asking him where he'd been last night but decided against it. What if he'd been at Wendy's, making up? I didn't want to hear about it right now. Not with him looking up at me like he was, his messy curls resting against his cheekbones and long fingers tapping against his thighs as he waited for me to join him.

I sat down next to him and reached for the remote. I put on a re-run of the X-files and took a bite of pizza.

"I hope you weren't waiting up for me," I said, keeping my eyes on the screen.

"Well, I was," he said quietly.

I didn't know how to respond. Apologize? Thank him? Either way, I felt closer to him than I had in years. The way his hand kept inching closer to me on the sofa made me think that I could probably reach for it, hold it in mine and he wouldn't pull away. I wanted to and I thought maybe he wanted me too. But I didn't. Instead, we watched the rest of the episode in a kind of familiar silence that was pretty nice too. Outside the snow was beating down against the window. I thought about how I might have been snowed in at the station had I still been there now on that beat up couch.

"Cold?" He said, breaking the silence.

I realized that I was sitting hunched into myself, an arm wrapped across my chest.

"Come here." He stretched an arm across my shoulders and pulled me close, so my head was resting against his shoulder. His hand clutched my arm and moved up and down slowly. I kept my eyes trained on the TV like maybe this was normal, maybe friends always sat like this.

"Better?"

"Uh, yeah," I said.

He leaned his cheek against the top of my head.

"You look so tired," he mumbled, "just close your eyes, you should try and sleep, okay?"

I didn't say anything, I just closed my eyes like he asked and turned my cheek further into the crook of his neck.

I wanted to stay in this moment forever. Spend the next eight hours savoring the warmth between our bodies, the smell of his skin, the way his fingers were gripping my arm. But my eyes were so heavy and my body felt so relaxed pressed against his. I was powerless against the urge to sleep, the last thing I remember was listening to his breaths over the background noise of the commercials on TV.

The next thing I knew he was shifting under me, slowly pulling his arm away from my shoulder.

"Hey," he whispered softly against my ear. "Are you awake?"

I opened my eyes and turned away from where my cheek was pressed into his shirt. It was still dark in the living room, other than the lamp by the TV we'd left on. "Kind of," I said.

His fingers lightly brushed my bangs away from my cheek where they'd been flattened during the night. "I hate to do this but I picked up a shift at the cafe, I have to be there in 15 minutes."

My mind was struggling to fight the haziness of sleep to catch up with all the important things that were happening.

"What time is it?" I said, my voice still gravelly with sleep. I just wanted to lay back against his chest again.

"It's only six," he said, sliding gently out from under me. He disappeared for a moment and returned with the comforter from his bed, which he laid over top of me. "Go back to sleep, okay?"

I laid back down against the cushion, pretending to be far more tired than I could possibly be in this moment. I heard him shuffling around in his bedroom for a couple minutes before returning in different clothes. He pulled his coat on and grabbed his keys from the coffee table before turning back to me.

"Sorry I have to go like this. But I'll be back at 2 - I'll bring you a wrap, okay?"

"Uh - okay," I mumbled. He shot me a half-smile from the doorway as he tightened the knot in his scarf.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered before closing the door softly behind him. I laid there, listening to the sound of him scraping the ice off the window of his car from downstairs, thinking of the way he'd held me through the night. The way he'd promised to bring me home lunch. I closed my eyes tighter and tried to imagine that this was the way my life always had been, that this moment wasn't special.

When I woke up again, it was because the coffee maker was crackling and bubbling in the kitchen, and there was light shining through the windows. I was mostly buried under Ethan's comforter, my fingers clutching the fabric. It was proof of what happened last night.

I heard the refrigerator door shut and looked up to see Henrietta reaching for a mug in the cupboard over the stove. She was still in her pajamas, a sweatshirt hung over her leggings. It made the fact that I was still in my clothes from last night seem stranger.

I sat up and scrubbed a hand over my eyes.

"Morning," I said tentatively. I couldn't keep avoiding her - we lived together - and anyway, I could finally share some good news with someone. Mike was out of the picture and maybe there was a reason for me to let my guard down.

"Coffee?" She was already getting a mug out of the cupboard for me.

"Yeah, thanks."

She put my mug down on the table before sitting on the chair across from me.

"Listen, Henri - about yesterday. I think I do need to talk to someone."

"Yeah?" She took a sip of her coffee before shooting me a knowing look. "Is there anything you want to talk about other than what happened yesterday?"

"Um…"

"Maybe the fact that you and Ethan spent the night on the sofa spooning? Maybe the fact that you're wrapped in his comforter?"

I reached for my coffee.

"Maybe that too," I said, shooting her a look. She was smiling and it was hard not to smile back.


	5. Chapter 5

_Now I can't think of air without thinking of you  
_ _I doubt that comes as a surprise  
_ _And I can't think of anything to dream about  
_ _I can't find anywhere to hide_

 _-Love is a Laserquest, Arctic Monkeys_

 **x.**

Henrietta was looking at me with a thoughtful expression over the rim of her coffee mug. I'd told her about Mike, those cold nights with chapped lips smashing together and colder mornings, cigarettes over the sink in his parent's kitchen. Then about the night at Wendy's party. The look on Katie's face, the flask of vodka I'd swallowed down and the way I'd tried to crush the metal container against the bathroom counter. I told her that because it was easier to talk about than the small meaningless moments I'd ached for Ethan. The stupid hopeful thoughts, the exhausting jealousy, and agony of acceptance that he'd never want me like I wanted him.

Her eyebrows pinched together as her gaze shifted from me to the maroon mug she was holding. "I just don't understand why you'd be with Mike. I thought you hated him."

I shrugged, "I do." We'd already been over this. I'd explained to her how it'd just been convenient and discreet. But she kept circling back to the same question: why Mike. I didn't have a new answer. Sometimes explanations could never be good enough unless you lived it.

"You could have been with someone else. You're _so_ cute, and smart, and funny Pete. You deserve to be with someone who you love and someone who loves you."

She was looking at me so searchingly, but I didn't know what she wanted to hear. All I could think to say in response was; if I was so wonderful, then why was I alone. But I couldn't say that to her - I couldn't even keep looking at her without feeling like I was breaking her heart.

I hadn't ever _wanted_ to love anyone but Ethan. Then, after everything I'd been through with Mike, the concept of love and affection began to feel like something that you just stopped believing in once you got old enough to know better. But that was just another thing I couldn't say out loud.

When it became clear I wasn't going to respond she tried again. "I'd always suspected you might be gay. You had that crush on Ethan our freshman year of high school."

"You think I had a crush on Ethan?" I said quickly. I didn't like the way she said it like it was some known fact like the day of the week or the temperature.

"Didn't you?"

I may have spent last night with my head on Ethan's shoulder but I still felt like the skinny freshman in the library guiltily watching the back of his neck as he bent forward to jot something in his notebook. Then staring blankly down at my textbook replaying the memory of the night before when we'd watched the street lights flicker on in the Benny's parking lot, taking slow drags of our cigarettes.

Henrietta sighed and shook her head at my lack of response. "You know, if you're going to be with him now - you are going to have to admit that you have feelings for him."

"It's complicated," I said. That was both true and easy to say. How could I explain that I barely knew what I felt anymore? That I needed her to tell me, I needed her to make it easy.

She took a sip of coffee and swiped a loose section of hair behind her ear. "Look, these last few months especially we haven't been as close as we used to be. You're always at the radio station - or getting tickets to concerts and taking off before anyone wakes up in the morning - or, hell, I guess with Mike somewhere. And I haven't been as good of a friend to you as I should have been."

"Henri-"

"I knew that something was off - I couldn't put my finger on it - but I should have asked, shouldn't have shrugged it off. All I'm trying to say is that you and Ethan – the two of you being together makes sense. If you have feelings for him, then _now_ is the time to do something about it."

I sucked in a breath. Everything wasn't as simple as she was making in sound. In fact, everything was incredibly complicated and I needed her to realize exactly why I wasn't jumping for joy just because Ethan said that he's gay. "And what happens if he decides he wants to get back with Wendy? Or what if things don't end up working out between us? If he finds out about the Mike thing and doesn't want me? Will we still be able to be friends? Still live together even?"

"First off, what's the alternative? Wonder what could have been while you find new ways to self destruct?" She paused, as if trying to force the weight of the question onto me. "I can't pretend to know what is going to happen with you and Ethan. But the way things are going, you're going to lose him as a friend anyway. You're never around. He has to initiate anytime the two of you hang out when you _are_ around. And you never let him talk to you about anything that matters."

I tilted my head back and looked up at the ceiling. The only way she'd know any of that is if he told her. It made me sad to think of Ethan asking Henrietta for advice on how to reach out to me because I was being an all-around shitty person. I tried to think back on my last interactions with him. All I could think of was him asking me to come to Denver, come to take pictures with him in the graveyard, to go thrifting with him. It was true, I couldn't remember the last time I'd asked him to hang out. Had I systematically been pushing Ethan away for years?

Henrietta slid onto the cushion next to me and squeezed my shoulder. "Listen, it's not too late. He seems to have feelings for you and I think you have feelings for him too. It doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, it shouldn't be."

"So what should I do?" I said, turning to her with a note of desperation in my voice. "How do I make this happen?"

She shot me a smile and raised an eyebrow. "Ask him out on a date."

"I'm serious."

"So am I," she said with a shrug. "Honestly Pete, I think that you know what to do, you don't need me to tell you. But I will, because you look so sad." I turned and shot her a look but she only smiled. "Text him right now and ask him if he wants to go out tonight on a date. Then take a long shower. Put on that black button down shirt you look so good in and then wait patiently until tonight. At dinner, just be yourself and afterwards, if things go well, maybe lean in for a kiss. _But don't stay out too late. I'll need both of you boys home at ten._ "

I raised my eyebrow and pulled out my phone – determined to text him before I lost my nerve.

"And if you need me to talk to you about the birds and the bees, I can do that too. But I'm going to need another cup of coffee first."

"Okay, you can shut up," I said with a laugh.

"I'm serious though Pete, don't complicate this. I think you already have more than you realize."

"Thanks Henri," I said, reaching over to give her a one-armed hug.

 **xx.**

Ethan had texted back right away and said he'd loved to go out tonight together. I don't know why I'd been so surprised. I was messing with my hair in the bathroom mirror while I waited for him to get home from work. We'd have some time to kill before dinner but I still wanted to look good. I'd put on that button down shirt like Henrietta had suggested with a striped cardigan pulled over it. It was easy to just think about how my hair looked or what belt I should wear. It kept my mind from wandering to far more anxiety inducing thoughts about tonight.

When the doorbell rang I almost thought that maybe Ethan had gotten out of work early or Henrietta might need help bring in the groceries. But neither really made any sense. I walked down the steps and pulled the door back, hoping it'd be Firkle. Maybe I could rope him into a mindless round of Elder Scrolls to kill time. What I wasn't prepared for was the sight of Wendy, standing on the porch of the apartment building, like a grim reaper here to take away the hope I'd just been talked into having.

"Hey Pete," she said. A messenger bag was hanging at her side, her long black hair was pressed against her cheeks by that same purple beanie she'd had for years.

"Ethan's not here," I said quickly, unconsciously scanning the street for his car anyway. The last thing I needed right now was to witness some teary reunion between the two of them.

"Yeah, I know," she said, "I have some stuff of his that I said I'd return today. I'm going back to Chicago tomorrow."

"Oh, I can just take it," I said, but I could tell from the look on her face that it wasn't going to be that easy. Her cheeks were red from the cold and I knew I should invite her in. It wasn't snowing out but the clouds felt heavy and low, making me feel like I'd gotten taller and the door-frame had shrunk at the same time. What could she possibly have of Ethan's that she couldn't have just mailed?

"And he said he was going to leave one of my cardigans on his bed for me. I'll just come up and grab it if that's okay."

"Yeah," I said slowly, looking again into the street for any sign of his car. "Of course."

She offered me a thin smile as I moved aside. I followed her up the steps, my eyes shooting towards Ethan's comforter, still on the sofa. For a crazy moment I thought she'd be able to guess why it was there. That her being here was just a ruse. That she was just here to confirm that I was moving in on her boyfriend.

"You look good," she said with a strange tone in her voice, resting her messenger bag on the kitchen table so she could dig through it. "Better than last time I saw you anyway."

"When was that," I asked impatiently, watching as she pushed aside her wallet and cellphone to retrieve the collection of Ethan's things.

"When I stepped over you on the floor of my basement the other day."

How many times would I have to think about that horrible night today? I wondered if she'd been the person that had stepped on my hair. The memory of the pain came back and I brushed my hair lightly where it'd been pulled. What was she trying to say? That I was some drunken loser who cleaned up nice? I knew that she'd never liked me. She could never fake her way through having the common interests that Ethan and I had always shared. Not to mention she'd resented the years of memories we'd built together before she was ever in the picture. Still, I can't believe she saw me like that, I wished I could scrub the image from her mind.

"I'm sorry," she said, abruptly looking up at me. "I don't mean to be a bitch. This is just - this is hard." She was holding a camera lens towards me. "Here's this, he left it in my dorm room. I have one of his SD cards in here somewhere too."

"It's okay," I said, taking the camera lens from her and sitting it on the table. She sucked her lip in and looked down at the empty spot in her bag that the lens had just occupied.

"This is going to sound so stupid but - I thought we'd end up getting married. That he'd move to Chicago - and for the longest time I couldn't understand why he wouldn't - why he'd want to stay in South Park when he could live in a city with me like we used to talk about." She turned to stare at the window over the sink like she was watching a TV screen. A TV that was playing out the life their sixteen year old selves had dreamed up between make-out sessions at Stark's Pond.

I didn't know what to say. I thought about offering her a cup of coffee but that seemed stupid and I couldn't remember if she even liked coffee. All those times she'd joined us at Benny's over the years and I'd never noticed what she ordered. Her eyes were welling up with tears and she looked down at her bag again, her dark hair hanging over her coat.

"God, I'm sorry. I don't mean to stand here and go on about this. I know you've never liked me Pete," she said, laying the SD card on the table along with a David Foster Wallace novel. Her fingertips were lingering on the spine of the book, like it was some final connection to Ethan that she was surrendering.

"Wendy - I don't dislike you," I offered, crossing the space between us and laying my hand over her shoulder. "And I'm sorry that things turned out like this."

She laughed, her eyes flashing up at me "Yeah, _okay_." I took a step back and let out a breath. Henrietta should be back any minute. Maybe I could call her. I was the absolute worst person to try and comfort Wendy.

"I'll go check his bedroom for your stuff," I said, because at this point, getting her to leave was probably the best thing I could do for us both. "Just a cardigan, right?"

"Pete…" She sounded remorseful, but I didn't feel like listening to another of her excuses for taking her frustrations out on me.

I could feel her following me into his bedroom but she didn't finish her thought. Just stood in the doorway watching as I picked up the light blue cardigan off his desk along with a couple bobby pins and a tube of chapstick. "Here you go."

She took the cardigan, turning it over in her hands while staring at his discarded scarf laying across the back of his desk chair.

"Is he doing any better?" She asked with a small frown. I followed her gaze to the scarf like it was telling her something that I couldn't hear.

"Better? What do you mean?"

"Is he less depressed?"

"Ethan's depressed?"

"Yeah. He isn't exactly the easiest person to read." She leaned against the door frame, shooting me a look of understanding. "Still, I would have thought he'd have talked to _you_ about it." I didn't like the tone in her voice when she said 'you' but I couldn't quite put my finger on why.

"I thought maybe he just wasn't sleeping," I said, thinking back to the dark circles under his eyes. The cigarette smoke I could smell drifting from under his bedroom door when I'd sneak in late at night. The constant cup of black coffee in his hand - no matter the time of day.

Wendy was looking at the neat stack of photo albums on the shelf beside his bed. A line of dust was visible along the black spines where they rested against the wood. I wondered if I could have been paying more attention. Knocking on his door, letting him talk when he needed someone to listen, helping him work through what he was feeling so he didn't have to do it alone. Weren't those the things a friend was supposed to do?

"He doesn't want to burden anyone by bringing it up. By moping around all the time or anything. But he needs to talk about what's bothering him just to get out of his own head sometimes. He needs his friends to remind him why they love him." I couldn't help but hear the accusation in her voice. But I didn't blame her. I had let Ethan down.

Wendy let out a breath, "There was so much of him that I felt like I wasn't seeing, that he wouldn't let me know. These last two years have been a downward slope and I knew that if I loved him I had to walk away. I couldn't keep demanding that he try to be someone for me that he couldn't be. Anyway, I just want him to be happy."

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't help but think of the way he'd held me so closely through the night, like he knew exactly how to keep my demons at bay. Then the other morning in the diner, how he held me as I cried into his neck, not wanting to let me pull away. Did he understand the way that life felt so lacking in anything strong enough to hang onto? Did he feel the same sense of loneliness that was always threatening to overtake me? I didn't want him to. I wanted to shield him from sadness. I wanted to wrap my arms around him until he didn't need to work to hide any part of himself.

"He will be happy," I said with certainty, "I'll make sure is he."

She shot me a sad smile and nodded.

 **xxx.**

After Wendy had left, I'd spent a long time thinking about how selfish I'd been. How worried I'd been about protecting myself from pain, protecting myself from the loss of Ethan's friendship. I hadn't noticed that he needed me, needed his best friend to make sure that he was keeping his head above water. When he'd come home from work I'd hugged him tightly and he'd been shocked at first, taking a moment to process what was happening. "I just missed you," I'd said.

Now he sat across from me at the restaurant. It was strange, I'd sat across from him for so many meals over the years, but it felt like this was the only one that mattered. He looked so good, with his dark curls falling against his cheek. The lights of the restaurant were reflecting in the silver clip of his suspenders, pulled over his broad shoulders. It was beyond belief that he'd gotten ready to go out on a date with me. That he looked so good, and I was the person sitting across from him.

We'd spent the better part of the meal reminiscing about the time we'd tried to start that band in high school. We'd poured over books in the library trying to come up with a cool enough name. How we'd skipped gym one day to drive to the used instrument store a town over and I'd found a beat up red guitar that they let me make payments on. Later when Wendy had wanted to join the band to sing back-up vocals I'd lied and said that I didn't have the money to keep paying for the guitar. Everything had fallen apart from there. The truth was that I still had it packed away in my closet, along with the rest of the stuff from my old bedroom. I wondered if things worked out between me and him if I'd have to tell him the truth about that.

"Hey," he said, taking a sip of his beer. "What are you thinking about? You look so serious."

"Sorry." I reached for my own drink. "I forgot to tell you that Wendy came by for her sweater. And she dropped off some of your stuff."

"Oh, yeah - I forgot she was doing that today." He tapped his fingers against his glass thoughtfully. The collars of his sleeves were pushed up his arms, and I glanced at the thick strap of his watch, to avoid whatever regret or pain I might see in his expression at the mention of her. "How's she doing?"

I thought of the way she'd stared at his things like they were forgotten artifacts in a museum showcase. How she'd stood there in his bedroom and told me how depressed he'd been. I glanced at him, searching for visible traces of that sadness. But his brown eyes were bright and looking back at me with a warmth that left no room for grief.

"She's good," I said simply. "She asked how you were doing. She said she was heading back to Chicago in the morning."

He nodded as I took another swig of my drink. "I hope it wasn't weird for you."

"No, I mean - it's not like I didn't know you had a girlfriend...for years."

"Ex-girlfriend," he shot me a meaningful look. "And anyway, she's been more like a friend to me this past year. I should have had the clarity to end things so much sooner. It wasn't fair to her. Buying that necklace…I don't know what I was thinking."

"So things hadn't been working out for a while now? I didn't know that." It was the closest I could get to alluding to how he'd been feeling.

"It's been hard to open up to you Pete." He leaning forward and gently pushed my bangs away from my eyes. "I feel like you're always somewhere else. Even when we're together you keep yourself at arm's length."

"That can change," I said, fighting the blush I felt creeping up my cheeks. "I want to be where you are."

"I'm glad." He was smiling so invitingly and the alcohol was swirling across my thoughts so warmly that I had to fight back the urge to reach across the table and touch him. He seemed to follow my train of thought because he shifted in his seat and grabbed my hand. He shot me a shy smile, as if asking 'is this okay.' I could feel the coolness of his silver rings in my palm.

"I know this is complicated," he squeezed my hand in his, "and it's scary, but I'd like to see where this could go."

He was so earnest, and it made me want to be earnest too. Made me want a new heart - or maybe just the one I had when I was fifteen. When I was naive enough to think maybe he loved me too, before Wendy, before my fear of my feelings for him. Before Mike. Before I'd become twisted and secretive and completely unable to express anything that mattered.

"Maybe we should get out of here," I said to break the tension. Because I didn't know how to tell him that I felt the same way. The longer we sat here, the more insecure I felt in my ability to know how to act, how to be someone's date - someone's boyfriend. All I knew was what I'd seen on TV or watched first hand between him and Wendy. It was pathetic and I knew it.

I pulled my hand away from his and snatched the bill off the table. "I'll be right back," I said before he could offer to pay. It was a great excuse to walk away, to compose myself. I weaved through the restaurant towards the cash register.

After paying I walked through the front door of the restaurant, debating if I had enough time for a quick smoke. I decided that a couple breaths of fresh air would be enough, and stood against the frozen stone wall of the building. The January air felt good against my flushed cheeks, I didn't even mind that I'd left my coat at the table. Without really stopping to think about it, I was calling Henrietta, my cellphone pressed against my ear.

"Aren't you supposed to be on a date?" She said playfully, but I could hear concern in her voice.

"This isn't working Henri," I paused and glanced nervously through the glass door of the restaurant, "I don't know how to act, I don't know what to say. I'm ruining everything."

"I don't believe that. You guys have been gone for over an hour. It can't be going that badly."

"I just don't know how to tell him what this means to me."

"You don't have to. All of that can come with time. Remember that this is just Ethan you're so worried about. Our dorky friend who we once walked in on dancing the "November Spawned a Monster" Morrissey dance in his bedroom. Smiths fanboy Ethan. Bad dancer Ethan. It's just Ethan. You can do this."

I laughed at the memory of Ethan dressed in one of his mom's blouses thrusting his hips along to the bassline. God, how did I ever doubt he was gay? "Okay," I said after taking a deep breath. "You're right - I don't know why I keep talking myself out of this."

"I love you Pete," she said after a moment of contemplation. "You'll never lose me as a friend. And, I can't speak for Ethan - but there's no way I believe that your worth to him hinges on whether or not this date is going well. And if it does, I'm going to kick his ass."

I laughed into the phone and nodded. "Thanks Henri."

"You're welcome - now I have to go - the doors are about to open," she said. I'd forgotten that she was going to that Peter Murphy show tonight and immediately imagined Damien standing next to her rolling his eyes at the Morrissey story. I smiled to myself and I stuffed my phone back and turned to head back into the restaurant. My hand was on the door when I heard a woman's scream break through the night air. I turned and saw a familiar looking blonde girl trying to get in a car while being drug back by the sleeve of her coat. Before I had time to think it through, I was running towards the couple. As I got closer I realized that the girl looked familiar because it was Katie. It was Katie and Mike.

"Let me go, Mike - I'm fucking serious!" She was shoving him away from her as she tried to grab her keys from where they'd fallen in the dark parking lot. I could see the metal gleaming next to to the tire of her car, inches away from where her fingers were reaching. But before she had a chance to grab them Mike pushed her forward and she fell towards her car. My breath caught in my throat from the fear that she'd hit her head, but it was hard to see. She twisted around and stared up at him from the ground. His hair was blowing over his shoulders, his coat unbuttoned like he'd thrown it on as an afterthought. I was afraid of what he was thinking as he stood over her like that, and sure enough he pulled his hand back, ready to smack her. There wasn't time for words, I ran forward, grabbed the back of his arms, and shoved him up against the door of the SUV next to Katie's silver car.

The wave of alcohol coming off of him almost made me choke. "Are you okay?" I yelled to Katie, without looking away from Mike's flushed and confused face.

"Yeah," she said quietly, and I heard her pick up the keys and fumble with opening the door of her car. "I told him that I wanted to break up with him and he just started freaking out. I just want to go home. He won't let me leave."

"Get off of me you fucking faggot," Mike sneered, looking down at me with a half-amused, half-pissed off expression.

"What's your problem dude?" I said, holding him tighter against the car. I'd never really pegged Mike for the violent type - but then again, I'd never seen him this drunk.

"You're my problem. Did you hear that Katie? Here's the only problem with our relationship."

He struggled against me for a minute, but I was too afraid of what he'd do if I let him go. Katie was standing behind me by her car, and I wished she'd just leave. What had happened tonight that had gotten them to this point?

" _You're_ the problem Mike," she yelled, "You're just a lying piece of shit and I'm sick of your excuses."

"Oh I'm a liar?" He said, trying to turn his head towards her, "Get the fuck off of me Pete -" he said, kicking me in the knee so I lost my grip on him. He slipped away from me and shoved my shoulder so I stumbled back away from Katie. "You just want out of this relationship so you can go whore it up once you're back at college." He was close to her now and she brought her hands up to her face and crouched away from him towards the car.

"Mike - " I yelled, reaching for his arm again. But before I realized what was happening, he swung around and cracked me in the nose. I staggered into the back of Katie's car and let out a soft groan. My hands rested on the trunk of her car as I tried to focus on anything but the waves of pain shooting through my face.

"What the fuck did I _just_ say?" His yelling cut through the temporary fogginess in my head. I looked over at Katie - her eyes were wide with shock. A steady dribble of blood was leaking onto my shirt and I used the sleeve of my cardigan to try and stifle the bleeding. My nose felt like it'd been completely crushed into my face and I gingerly ran my fingers along the bridge and down the sides to try and see if it was broken.

"Mike, calm down," Katie said, sounding scared now. Her voice was cracking and she was hugging herself against the cold night air, "Please, listen. You're drunk. I just want to go home. This has nothing to do with him."

" _This_ ," he said loudly, pointing in my general direction, "is the only problem we've _ever_ had. And he means nothing to me - do you understand?"

When he didn't get any response out of her he turned back towards me. "Who's the pretentious ass now Pete?" I was about to respond when he swung his fist back. Before he had a chance to hit me again, I punched him squarely in the mouth. I heard Katie scream and I winced at the pain in my knuckles. I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually had to hit someone. Maybe it had been that fight we'd gotten into at the football game all those years ago. How obnoxiously ironic.

Mike reeled over momentarily in pain, letting out a stream of curses that sounded like a hiss. But when he looked up, he just smirked at me - his teeth red with blood. No doubt the alcohol was doing a bang-up job of numbing the pain. Too bad I didn't have that advantage.

"Any excuse to touch me. What did I say Katie? He's a freak." He grabbed my shoulders and in one fluid motion slammed me down onto the back of the car. My head bounced off the hard metal and I had to blink several times to try and focus on his face again. His expression was twisted in anger as he stood over me. I could feel the panic inside of me swelling - forcing the fogginess threatening to overtake my thoughts away.

As his hand went for my throat I reached up and ripped at a clump of his hair in desperation. His hands abandoned my throat to grab my wrists as he cried out in pain. I used the opportunity to kick him in the ribs, sending him flying back away from me. He landed on the concrete on his knees and I shoved myself off of the car. I felt wobbly on my feet as I stood there. Everything felt like it was happening in slow motion except my thoughts; my mind was spinning with how to make this stop, how to get back to restaurant, how to make this okay. But I hadn't focus enough to process any of them. Katie was shouting at me asking if she should call the police. Mike was on his hands and knees, glancing up at me like he'd love to smash my head straight through the windshield next time.

"Calm the fuck down!" I yelled standing over him, wiping the blood that wouldn't stop pouring from my nose on the back of my hand. "Mike - just - fuck - stay on the ground and calm down." I just needed a minute to think.

"Did you hear that Katie? He wants me to stay on my knees. At least someone fucking wants me."

"Shut up!" I yelled, but he was crawling towards me, grabbing at the ends of my shirt to pull himself up. I had to struggle to stay standing and not fall forward onto him but he was just laughing, his hands on my chest grabbing at my shirt to steady himself.

"You like it," he mumbled into my ear, his hand sliding under the bottom of my shirt.

I pulled back and hit him again. He stumbled backwards, clutching his eye. The smile was gone from his face now and replaced with a look of rage. He rushed towards me before I had a chance to process what was happening. He punched me in the mouth and I fell onto the hood of the car with a soft grunt before rolling onto the concrete. But I wasn't in pain anymore, my body was numb to everything that had been hurting a second ago. I thought about Ethan sitting across me in the restaurant - and the lonely nights he'd spent smoking in his bedroom while I'd been letting Mike Makowski touch me six blocks away. How I'd stood in the shower those mornings before the sun had risen, wincing at the scratch marks he had left - telling myself I deserved it. I pushed myself up, focusing on the green ends of his hair blowing in the night air and charged at him, reaching for any part of him I could hurt.

His hands were covering his face and I could hear Katie screaming at me to stop. But I couldn't even think straight I just wanted to hurt him, I just wanted him to shut up. To stop talking to me like he owned me. Like he knew anything about me. I thought about all those times his nails scratched my skin open as my fists smacked his shoulders and ears and his hands and arms. I could hear the soft grunts and cries coming from my lips - but it was like the rest of the world had gone silent.

Two hands grabbed the back of my shirt and ripped me off of Mike. My entire body was tense and I struggled to get free - to keep pummeling him- my vision had tunneled and all I could see was the end of Mike's navy peacoat. I knew it was Ethan that had me in his grip, that it was Ethan saying my name, telling me to calm down, telling me to breath. His arms were wrapped firmly across my chest. But all I could think about was the mocking way that Mike was spitting blood onto the ground.

"Oh look, it's gangly goth," he said between breaths, his hands resting on his knees, "did you know what a little slut your friend is? Does he tell you stories about my cock -"

"Mike! Shut the fuck up!" Katie yelled. Her voice seemed to be coming from the end of a very long tunnel. And I couldn't focus on anything but the black gum stains in the parking lot and the chipped white paint of the parking space lines. I tried to focus on the memory of Henrietta telling me that she loved me, that she'd always be my friend because that was the only good thing I could remember.

"Can you call someone to come get him?" Ethan was saying to Katie. I didn't hear her response but the next thing I knew I was being led away. Ethan's arm was like a lead weight on my shoulders and I wasn't sure how I wasn't sinking into the cement. My mind was reeling with what he must be thinking. Was he trying to figure out the nicest way to tell me that this was over before it began? Did he regret the way he'd held me last night, like I was breakable – like I was innocent? Would he demand to know the whole truth about me and Mike, and how could I even look at him and tell him that?

He guided me into the passenger seat of his car and crouched down next to me in the parking lot. "Pete, look at me," he said. I blinked and realized I had been staring vacantly down at my red knuckles, already starting to bruise. I needed to focus, I needed to make things okay again. Okay like they'd felt when he held my hand in the restaurant.

"He's lying," I mumbled. The words felt bulky around the edges because my lip was swollen. "I don't know what he's talking about…"

"Christ," Ethan said, wincing in sympathy as his fingers grazed the side of my nose. He reached into the glove compartment and stuffed some napkins under my nose. "Hold these here, okay?"

"He is just fucking with you -" I tried again. He held my chin between his fingers pushing my face from side to side inspecting the damage.

"Hey - just - stop talking, your lip is split."

"Ethan," I said – feeling the weight of the emotions I'd suppressed for years crushing down on me, "you still like me, right?"

I brought my hands to my face to hide the tears building in my eyes.

He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into his shoulder, "Hey, of course," he whispered as I held my hand over my face so none of my blood would get on the white crosses in his scarf. He sat back and looked me in the eye, "I could never not like you, you're my best friend."

I shook my head. That's all I ever would be. I could feel warm tears falling faster down my cheeks, feeling completely pathetic. Pathetic for what he'd heard Mike say about me, pathetic for the blood on my face, for believing that I ever had a chance with him. For thinking we could ever make plans for our future together like the way he and Wendy had.

"What is…Pete - what's the matter - please, please tell me," he said, looking at me like maybe he'd start crying too. He brought his thumb up to wipe away blood on my lip, like that would help things.

"I don't want to just be friends," I said the words coming out louder than I meant them to. "I don't," I said again, shaking my head and repeating the words _I don't_ quietly as I cried.

He was watching me with an unreadable expression, before pushing himself off the ground with a sort of exasperation. He stood next to the car now, and I thought maybe I didn't catch his response. But after a second I saw that he'd been lighting a cigarette. A trail of grey smoke framed his neck, his fingers rested on the top of the car door, the lit cigarette burning orange.

"Ethan - "

"Why do you doubt me Pete? Why do you doubt this? What do you think tonight was about - what last night was about?" He turned to me and when I didn't have an immediate response he took another drag of the cigarette in frustration. "I have feelings for you… I want to go on dates with you, I want to fall asleep next to you, and I want to _finally_ be honest with you. But sometimes it feels like we've both picked up the same book but decided on different endings."

I could feel the fogginess in my thoughts lift, as if realizing the importance of the moment. "It's just, I've wanted this so long that I can't believe it's happening. God, Ethan - I've wanted this for years."

"Years," he repeated as he shook his head, leaving a zigzag of smoke behind in the air. "And you never gave me a chance."

"You were dating Wendy!"

"But you never once thought enough of me to be honest with me. God! You could have told me," he said, swiping a hand through his hair, leaving his curls sticking up on the sides. "Maybe it could have made things easier for us both."

"You're all I had," I said weakly, "how could I want to mess that up?" I blinked away new tears and stared down at the blood stained napkin I'd been holding to my nose. The bleeding seemed to have clotted for the most part anyway. How could I tell him about the lonely nights in the trailer growing up when my mom would be gone for weeks at a time? How abandoned and unloved I felt – but how he could always make me feel like I was special, like I was worth something. How could I explain about the football game - the way he'd recoiled from my touch, and how afraid I'd become of losing him after that. The way the moment has expanded and amplified in my mind over the years, until it was a nightmare instead of a memory.

He leaned his head back, as if he was looking up at the stars. But it was so cloudy tonight that the only lights in the sky were blinking planes or satellites. I wondered what he was thinking as he stood so still like that. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. I was still sorry for not being brave in spite of it all.

When he looked back down, it was at my boots hanging over the side of his car, and then to the crushed-up napkin in my hand. He crouched down next to me, his brown eyes were soft again. "I wasted so many years not being honest with myself." He stabbed the end of his cigarette into the concrete, we both watched as the embers faded. "And I understand that you may have made some desperate choices while you waited. But I'm telling you that I have feelings for you. So, I'm asking you to please give this a chance. We owe it to ourselves - we owe it to one another."

"You don't care about what happened with Mike?"

"I don't _know_ what exactly happened with you and Mike. But fuck that - I'm not thinking about that right now." I could tell he was focusing on my eyes so he didn't need to think about any of the blood on my face. "The only thing I care about right now is _me_ and _you_."

I nodded, moving forward so my forehead could rest against his. I could feel his breath against my cold cheeks, the scent of the peppermint from the same kind of shampoo he'd used since high school, the familiar slope of his shoulders as he leaned towards me.

"I love you." I said it because I hadn't been brave for so long - and I had to show him I still could be.

I couldn't see his lips, but I could feel him smiling. He tilted his head and pressed his lips into a soft kiss on the side of my mouth, avoiding my split lip. His fingers cupped my cheek with a gentle uncertainty. "I love you too, Pete." His words were quiet in the night air but, to me, they felt like the only things that existed in the world.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thanks for reading - sorry for the long wait on this chapter, I hope the length made up for it. There is going to be one additional chapter to follow! In the meantime, please let me know what you think in a review.


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